


In Wolf's Clothing

by TheVulpineHero1



Category: One Hundred Percent Orange Juice, QP Shooting - Dangerous!! (Video Game)
Genre: Borrowed OC, Bunny Girl, Cat Girl, Consensual Sex, F/M, Giantess - Freeform, Growth, Kemonomimi, Size Difference, dog girl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23139418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVulpineHero1/pseuds/TheVulpineHero1
Summary: A series of smut and fluff stories done for art trades and other gifting, using a friend's OC.
Relationships: OC/Aru, OC/QP
Kudos: 11





	1. Screw the Pooch

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of short (?) smutfics that originally came about as a way to either trade art or just practice writing lewds using somebody else's OC, developing their personality a little bit in the meantime. Jaune belongs to Hind/yukihind; you can find him on pixiv. A short precis of the character's backstory is that he's an immigrant to the setting from an unnamed foreign land, he's working (somewhat unwillingly) with the Waruda, and he's ex-military.

_Jaune and QP (by yukihind)_

* * *

The problem with QP, Jaune had decided, was that she smelled delicious.

Well, actually, there were quite a few problems with QP. The first was that, although she had one of the brightest smiles in the city, she herself was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. To be entirely fair, this was less of a problem to her and more of a problem to everybody around her, because she lived in a world where almost every problem could be solved by shooting at it. A more intelligent mind might be tempted to apply some lateral thinking or alternative solutions, just for the sheer novelty of it, but QP really was more of a ‘shoot it until it goes away’ kind of girl, an attitude that Jaune admired in spirit but found troublesome in practice – not least because he was often on QP’s list of shootable problems.

The second was that she was a dog girl. Dog girls, in Jaune’s experience, were annoying because they were almost invariably pretty attached to the idea of right and wrong. After all, what kind of dog didn’t know the difference between being a good girl and a bad girl? Pack structure played a part, too; if there was one thing a dog loved, it was having a defined place in the pecking order. They liked rules and authority, regardless of where they in particular stood on the totem pole. It was all very civic minded. As a wolf and a soldier, he understood it very well, but it also meant she couldn’t really be bargained with, and was very yappy about it if you tried.

The third, of course, was that she was the sworn enemy of the organisation he was a part of, which meant his opportunities for diplomacy were rather… truncated. Waruda, in QP’s world, were Bad Guys. If you were in Waruda, you were probably doing something wrong. It stood to reason. And sometimes he was, but other times he was trying to buy groceries. It was very annoying to run into her, have her shout two lines of dialogue and then obliterate the produce aisle with her bullet-vomit. Problem 3a was that, despite her tendency to react to him with heavy artillery, his mission for the day was to distract her while Yuki negotiated a large loan at the nearby bank. One that had no interest and no due date for repayment but which included a few magnum rounds as a deposit.

But, if you ignored the laundry list of other problems, the main problem with QP was that she smelled good. Not, unfortunately, in the way that a bakery smells good, although he was fairly sure that if you could squash down the smell of a good bakery into a perfume, no other perfumes would exist. They wouldn’t need to. Nor was it a coffee kind of smell, or even one of those acquired taste smells like motor oil or charcoal. No, QP had that law of the jungle, pheromone laden, husky Amazonian kind of smell – an olfactory holdover from the half of her makeup that had six nipples, chased mailmen and went into heat every half a year. It wasn’t unusual for kemonomimi; even Yuki had that kind of smell about her sometimes, although she took every effort to mask it with tobacco and fine whisky. But Yuki was a cat, and her scent missed a giant genetic bullseye in him that QP’s very much didn’t. There was a difference between a dog and a wolf, but if you put them in a closed room together it very quickly became academic.

It did make her very easy to track, though.

“Wah! Y-you!” she gasped as he sidled out of Green’s Alley with his hands in his pockets. Normally, he would keep them where she could see them to established he wasn’t armed, but he had learned it didn’t really make a difference. Green’s Alley was a lovely shortcut through the heart of town that no-one ever took; it looked peaceful and inviting during the day, but at night became a haven for men and women of… negotiable affection. That didn’t necessarily make it less peaceful or inviting, but made those words apply in a somewhat different sense. “…What was your name again?”

If he was honest, he had never actually told her. Announcing your identity to a girl who routinely shaves months off your life expectancy seemed like one of those Bad Ideas that happened to other people. But, he’d been thinking, maybe he should. Maybe a name would help her think about him like a living thing rather than a moving target. It was worth a shot, anyway.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and immediately wished he hadn’t. When QP stopped walking, her aroma had begun to pool around her like a cloak; the smell hit him like a very aromatic tonne of bricks. Unlike Yuki, she didn’t drink or smoke. Unlike Yuki, she didn’t wear high class perfume because she was The Boss and that was what bosses did. Unlike Yuki, her scent was pure and undiluted musk, the kind designed to steal through his nostrils, waft up into his brain and yank at various bits of his limbic system until his lower body got the message. Unfortunately, his body’s internal telegraph didn’t take very long to relay it. Muscles were being tightened, goosepimples were being raised, and blood he could really have used in the head that did the thinking was rerouted to the head that didn’t. It was an abrupt change in his personal chemistry that left him quite breathless, and probably much more susceptible to whatever chemistry was going on in the girl opposite to him. Reactive, that was the word. Certainly, there were parts of him that were no longer inert.

“Jaune. It’s Jaune,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll try to remember it for next time,” she said, knowing full well that she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the best at names and faces. Mostly her brain was keyed towards very quickly moving objects, and sadly for him, Jaune just wasn’t that quick. “Don’t get mad about it, alright? Anyway, why’d you jump out of that alley at me, huh?”

For a moment – a long, dangerous moment – he was silent. The cloud of pheromones was messing with his head. He’d spent all morning coming up with a script to hopefully avoid a trip to hospital, and completely forgotten it. He wished he’d written it on his hand. Just as QP began to puff up her chest to declare her first attack, he remembered. “I heard you were an expert. On pudding.”

“An expert?” she scoffed, a dangerous little edge to her voice. “I’m the expert on pudding and pudding related phenomena! I’ve had more puddings than you’ve had hot dinners!” She pointed a thumb at her own modest chest. Terrifyingly, she was probably right about the hot dinners part. “But why does that justify skulking around in back alleys and spooking me when I’m out for a walk?”

Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. He had gotten past the second line of dialogue. It was a new era. “Well, I was hoping for some advice on where to start. I, uh, want to get into pudding – you know, as a hobby – but I’ve never had one before, so I thought–”

A dog can make many sounds. The sound that QP chose to make was not ‘woof’. It was not ‘growl’. It wasn’t even ‘wan’. It was positively thermonuclear. One second she was half a street away and the next she had teleported to basically the end of his nose, standing on her tiptoes and reaching up to shake him by the lapels. She was close enough for him to count her individual eyelashes, which were surprisingly well-kept, and oh God, the smell of her–

“You’ve NEVER had pudding? Aren’t you one of Yuki’s goons, though? They don’t give you any?” she asked. Asking was perhaps not quite the right word; it was more like she was holding him by the ankles and shaking him in case the answers fell out of his pockets. “No wonder you’re evil! That’s inhumane! It’s unacceptable! It’s… it’s… It’s cruelty to animals!”

“Don’t call me an animal.”

“You are, though. Unless you’re a vegetable.”

“Or a mineral,” he muttered. He was definitely as hard as a rock, that was for sure.

“Whatever! Anyway, we have to sort this out. Nobody can be truly evil once they’ve awakened to the true power of pudding! It’s the cosmic egg white that binds the souls of man into the delicious hamburger patty of society!” QP declared, rocketing her to the #1 spot on the ‘Sentences I didn’t expect to hear today’ leaderboard. “Come with me. We’re going to fix you, June!”

The hand at his lapel became a manacle, and he knew he was trapped. He remembered, a little too late, one of the first pieces of advice that Yuki had given him when he arrived in their country, delivered over a glass of scotch: If you see anything you don’t understand, don’t touch it, and don’t piss it off. (The addendum to the rule, ‘Don’t fuck it,’ had only been added later).

QP, as it turned out, was a difficult girl to understand.

* * *

He could walk away at any time.

The thought had less to do with his willpower and more to do with his legs, both of which (to his surprise) had remained attached and showed every sign of continuing to do so. His knees, however, had been surreptitiously replaced with jell-o cubes without him noticing. Luckily, the sofa he was sitting on was very soft and comfortable – so much so, in fact, that when he sat down he had had to fight to avoid slithering into the depths of its cushions and being consumed.

Okay, so the thought had a little bit to do with his willpower. Mostly, he was trying to avoid thinking about it, casting his eyes around her tiny living room. There was a coffee table with no coffee spills, piled high with college textbooks – mostly about biology, it seemed. Was that what she was studying? No, no, it was sports sciences – he dimly recalled Aru telling him about it. According to her, QP was better on the track than in the lab, but wanted to explore the ramifications of the unique kemonomimi biology, since few studies had been done on it. Currently, Jaune was more concerned about his own biology.

To his great surprise, QP had dragged him right past the convenience store, where they might have picked up a cup of discount pudding. She had dragged him right past the supermarket, where the more high-class puddings could be found. She had dragged him all the way to her own house, hurled him through the front door, and planted him in her man-eating sofa so she could make – herself, by hand – a home-made, top class specimen of the breed for his first pudding experience. He couldn’t say no to such dedication, and not just because she apparently had the gripping strength of a bear trap. He was genuinely touched by the lengths she was going for him, and for her pudding ideals.

It might, also, have had something to do with the fact that QP’s house – in a cruel and unusual twist of fate – smelled like QP. It wasn’t her fault, he was sure. She seemed like quite a cleanly dog, whose hair smelled of strawberry shampoo with hints of flea powder, but houses just collected smells like that. Particularly soft textiles, like the sofa he was ensconced in. When the time came to leave, it was going to be pretty hard to walk out into a world of fresh, clean air that didn’t trickle into his synapses and play them like a harp, and not just because because his junk would be hitting his thigh with every step.

Still, even if he could walk away at any time – and he definitely could, no doubts about that whatsoever, not even the tiniest inkling of hesitation – there was no reason to do so right now. For one, he was being given an enlightening lecture on pudding preparation, enthusiastically delivered by the queen of pudding herself. She had folded him into the sofa, thrown on an apron that was far too cute to be wearing around any red-blooded male, and immediately set to work evangelising. The puddings she was making now, she explained, wouldn’t be the ones she’d give him, since they needed to set overnight. But she wanted to show him the bit where she made the caramel, which was her favourite bit, and then she wanted to show him the bit where she made the custard, which was her other favourite bit, and then they could do the bit where they ate some puddings she made yesterday, which was her most favourite bit. Her tail wagged happily as she stirred away. (QP’s tail, Jaune couldn’t help but notice, was much shorter and stockier than Yuki’s, and a little shorter than even his own. He couldn’t help noticing it because, when such a small tail was wagging, the rest of the posterior ended up wagging a little too.)

“The caramel’s coming together really nicely. Hey, come and look!” she said, hovering over the stove.

With legs that were threatening to unionise and go on strike, he reluctantly extracted himself from the sofa and strode boldly into the kitchen, where he almost immediately hit his head on an open cupboard door. QP’s kitchen, he realised, was tiny: a small corridor of tiles between two rows of work surfaces, with pots, pans, trays and cannisters of dry ingredients dominating the space. There was just enough space leftover to accommodate one dog and her elbows, although it was a tight fit. He breathed deeply, felt the sweet smell of caramel fill his lungs. After spending so long immersed in QP’s scent – which, now that he thought about it, might have had a caramel undertone to it – it was as bracing as a gasp of crisp autumnal air. He felt clearer, smarter. More in control.

“Look at that colour,” she said, stirring in long, slow strokes with a wooden spoon. “Doesn’t it just look super rich and inviting?”

He half-smiled, doubtful that his appreciation of the base constituents of pudding would be anywhere near as rapturous, and put a hand on her arm so he could tiptoe and peek over her shoulder.

They gasped at once, and he pulled his hand back as if it had been struck. QP whipped her head around to look at him wordlessly, sudden confusion in her brown eyes; she’d felt what he had, a jolt of electricity that had seem to crackle from her skin, up his arm and through his entire body. His hair seemed to be standing on end. She made a strange, strangled noise as the comprehension hit her. For a moment, the world seemed to stop.

Then he laughed nervously, and the caramel bubbled ominously, and something like normal motion returned to them. Soldiers didn’t flee, so he retreated tactically to the sofa, his heart hammering in his chest. She kept on with her preparations, occasionally dropping her utensils and throwing sharp glances at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. Neither spoke, for fear of breaking some silent rule, some unknown spell.

The minutes chased each other away as he tried to gather his thoughts. They weren’t very helpful, even when he’d gathered them; mostly, they consisted of ‘shit’, with the occasional ‘double-shit’ thrown in for good measure. Not here, he thought to himself. Not with a girl who shot him on sight, a girl his boss both loved and hated, a girl who was so naive and yet dripping with the scent of unrealised physicality, of sex in potentia. But in his heart of hearts, he knew it was almost inescapable. That was the thing about lo– he shook his head even as he thought it – about mutual attraction; people always said it was chemistry between two people. And they were so close and yet so far when they said that. It wasn’t chemistry at all. It was physics; it was a spark, electricity running through you. It was a force that pushed you and pulled you, quickly or slowly, without any regard. It was being drawn to somebody, living in their orbit. Love, he had realised, was gravity, and once you were caught by it, you were doomed to fall.

“The… the pudding’s ready.” QP’s voice was so quiet, so hesitant, when she walked into the room carrying a tray with two plates on it, both adorned by wobbling puddings. There was a softness to it that he had never heard before, that quickened his heart when he heard it. “Um. It’s not the puddings I was just making, so it might not be the same, but… they’re still my handmade puddings.”

She somehow sat down on the sofa without sinking into it, like a bird perching on marshland, and handed him his plate and spoon before setting about her own pudding. To his surprise, she ate it slowly, savouring each mouthful, letting it sit on her tongue before she swallowed it – like a gourmet enjoying a fine wine. Her eyes flicked toward him, met his. Her cheeks flushed. “Jaune? Is something wrong?”

“N-nah,” he shrugged, suddenly feeling his gaze drawn, as if by incredible magnetism, to his feet. “It just seemed like you were really enjoying it. It was cute.”

Studiously looking away from her, he took a spoonful of pudding and ate it, letting it sit on his tongue just as she did. It was… good. Better than good, actually. Delicious. The warm, rich taste of caramel was lifted by the coldness of the dessert and the undertones of fine vanilla, and the texture was intriguing yet enjoyable. He didn’t think he would devote himself to it as religiously as QP did, but he certainly saw the appeal. Spoonful by spoonful, he continued eating, slowly reaching the conclusion that he was going to have to learn how to make this stuff himself with leftovers from the Waruda communal refrigerator.

“How is it?” she asked.

“Really good. I’ve been missing out,” he said, honestly.

“Heh heh. Well, of course! I’m the world’s foremost expert in pudding, after all. If I make you a pudding, you know it’s gonna be super awesome.” She puffed out her chest. The sweet smell that pervaded the house seemed to roll off her in waves.

“A-ah. Yeah, that’s right,” he agreed. Now seemed about the time to extract himself, before he did something, or someone, he might regret. His head was getting fuzzy. Pleasantries, first, and then he could make an escape. “Thanks for the meal. I feel bad, since you went to all this trouble for me and there’s nothing I can do to pay you back.”

The air was ominously still, and he realised he’d made a mistake. “We-ell,” QP said, hesitantly, “there is something you could do for me.”

Oh boy, he thought. Here it comes. This is the part where she asks me to bone her. I’ve pissed her off, I’ve touched her, and now I’m going to fuck her. Three for three.

“Could you… um… scratch my ears?”

He couldn’t stop the half-laugh, half-sigh that escaped him. “Is that all?”

“Hey, don’t make fun. You’re a wolf, right? You know how good it is to have your ears scratched,” she said conspiratorially.

“But I can scratch them myself.”

“That’s like trying to tickle yourself, though. It always feels better when somebody else does it.” She began to pout at him. “Come oooon. Just for a little bit.”

He hesitated, remembering the jolt that had gone through him the last time he touched her. But it was only scratching her ears. Just for a little while. He took a deep breath. Bad idea. His head felt fuzzier. “Alright. Just… just a little.”

There must, he knew, have been a moment where the put their plates down, where he swivelled sideways on the sofa to accommodate her, when she awkwardly sat closer to him. But his mind skipped over them, like missing frames on an animation reel; they were unimportant, unnecessary. She faced away from him and pressed her head into his hands. His fingertips tingled. His everything tingled. With soft, delicate motions, he started to rub the back of her ears with his thumbs, feeling the soft, velvety fur against his skin.

“Mmm…” she sighed, a long, soft breath that almost became a moan. Her eyes were half-lidded, staring off into space. “A little lower.”

Her breathing became slower and deeper as he worked; gently, gently, she began to side lower on the sofa, still pressing her ears into his hands as she did, until she was lying down. He brought his hands lower as she fell, so she could lie comfortably, until her head was in his lap. He kept scratching and stroking, just as softly as he was able. The beginnings of a snore crept into her breaths; her tongue hung out of her mouth, like a real dog’s. This was how he got out of here without getting attached, he realised. Well, any more attached. He just had to comfort her until she fell asleep, and then quietly make his way home. The rise and fall of her chest slowed, and just when her eyes were about to close–

She turned sideways, and came face to face with the bulge in his pants.

“Ah… Jaune?” Her voice was thick. Unusual.

“D… don’t worry about it. It’s just guy stuff. Happens to everybody,” he said, uncomfortably. “Just relax and go t–” He gasped as she gingerly pressed her palm against the bulge, cupping it in her hand. “QP, what are you… what are you doing?”

“I don’t… really know,” she said, sitting up. Her hand trailed upwards, lingering at the tip of his cock, before sliding up to his belt. He felt the release of tension of she undid the buckle and began to unfasten the buttons of his pants. “It just… feels right.”

He was still searching for words when the last button came undone. Electricity seemed to crackle where she grazed his skin with her fingertips. Almost shyly, she slid her hands under the waistband of his underwear. He groaned as he felt her palm brush against the underside of his shaft. She was right. This was right. He couldn’t resist. His head was too full of the smell of her, the softness of her, the feeling of her skin against his. The electricity, the gravity. He was falling. He closed his eyes and groaned, felt the cool air against his dick as she brought it into the open. Opened his eyes again to look at her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth hanging open. Glistening lips. She was breathing deeply, her chest shifting as she did, looking down at his manhood as if it was the only thing in the world. She raised herself up on her knees.

“Itchy,” she gasped. “For this whole month I’ve been feeling itchy. Down here.” She slid her hand under her skirt, slowly rolled down her panties. They came away sodden. Blushing, she lifted the hem to let him see her pussy, the glistening lips, the softly swollen vulva. As slowly as he could, he brought his fingers up to touch her, and gasped when she pressed herself against his hand.

“You’re in heat,” he said, almost dazed. He didn’t think kemonomimi went into heat. Not real heat, anyway. He didn’t, and Yuki denied it. His fingers came away wet where he had touched her; he pressed them to his lips, and let the smell and taste of her fill up his senses.

She said nothing. She said nothing, and began to lower her hips again until the tip of his cock was pressed against her pussy. The grown-up, responsible part of his mind – the part that knew he was experienced in the bedroom, that he should be taking charge – started thinking about foreplay, protection. As he felt her grind against his shaft, sliding against it, he realised she didn’t need any. Nature would handle it. Chemistry would handle it. Physics would handle it. He felt her take him in her fingers again, stroke his slickened shaft once, twice, and then hold him steady. Her hips raised. As she pressed the tip of his cock right up to her entrance, poised for penetration, he stopped thinking. His body could do the thinking for him.

He heard her take a long, deep breath. And then his entire world was heat, and pressure.

Distantly, he heard her sigh – not in pain, but in relief. As if she was stepping into a cool breeze on a summer’s day, the first glass of water after trudging through the desert. He fought to keep his hips and his hands still, to not buck up into her, to not pull her hips down and plunge into her warmth. He’d never felt anything like her before. She was so tight, and yet she was taking him so easily, so hungrily, one inch and then the next, without wincing or hesitating. She didn’t have any rhythm, any skill, but she felt as though she’d been made for him, or he’d been made for her, the perfect size, the perfect shape, a pleasure that intense and yet effortless. Slowly she began to lean forwards, her walls tightening as the angle changed, her hands slithering up his chest and towards his face, his cheeks, his lips. Unbidden, his hands gripped around her ass, so soft and yet so muscular, gently helping her move against him and pull him deeper inside her.

He knew, in the very fibres of him, that he couldn’t go back from this. As she pressed her lips against him in an artless, desperate kiss, he knew that he couldn’t go back to seeing her as an enemy, or even a friend. Just as he was filling up a space inside her body, she was filling a space inside his heart, one that had been set aside for her without him ever realising it. It was right. It was natural. Almost idly he realised that his hand had drifted and slipped under her clothes, and he could feel her bare breast under his palm, her heart beating, her nipple so stiff as he rolled it under his thumb. The kiss deepened as she took more and more of him inside her, moaning and gasping against his lips as she did.

As if in a dream, he felt her hips finally press flush against his as she took him all the way to the base. He felt his tip pressing against the mouth of her womb, felt her clamp down on him happily as he began the long withdrawing stroke. She gasped when he thrust again, and he realised that he was filling her, completely and utterly; there was no part of her that wasn’t being stimulated, no part of her that wasn’t squeezing desperately at his dick. Made for him. He could get addicted to this, to her. He was probably going to. As it dawned on him that she could take him, all of him, his movements became less gentle, more intense. She matched them, quickly finding his rhythm, slamming her hips down to try and force him even deeper, into the deepest parts of her–

His eyes widened as he came. The orgasm took him by surprise with its suddenness, its intensity; he had known he wouldn’t last long, but the moment came so much quicker than he thought. As the first waves of his seed began to flow into her, he heard her gasp, felt the tremor hit her, the sudden convulsion as her own orgasm followed. She kissed him desperately as she clenched down on him, rocking her hips, wringing out every last drop of his cum in a long, steady ejaculation that felt as if it might never end. Finally, when he had nothing left to give, she let her hips drop and lay on top of him, gently pressing her lips against his neck, his chin.

“Don’t,” she said, between feathery kisses, “take it out. It feels so soothing. Just… lie here with me for a while.”

He smiled, his heart fluttering, and kissed the very tip of her nose. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

* * *

“Jaune? Can I ask you a question?”

She was still curled against him, a soft, happy lump. Her voice was honey-sweet, even after a full hour of afterglow. At some point she had disappeared into her bedroom to put on a fresh pair of panties, but when exactly she did it, he didn’t know. He still felt fuzzy and content, even as he realised what she was going to ask.

“Why are you in Waruda? They’re the bad guys. You don’t seem like a bad guy, so I wondered. I can’t figure it out,” she said, trailing a finger down his chest. The implication was clear. You don’t have to be a Bad Guy. You could be a Good Guy. With me.

“I like to think I’m not a bad guy. Not really. And they’re not as bad as you think. They just… do bad things from time to time. Like everybody else. But the truth is, I’m indebted to them… in a lot of ways,” he replied, trying his best to explain the complicated knot of emotions in his chest. “A good man pays his debts.”

She blinked at him blearily, before her face softened and she accepted it. When she looked at him again, she had a slight frown. “If I see you doing bad stuff, I’ll have to fight you. That’s just how it is. When a good person loses their way, you have to correct them, right?”

“I guess so,” he said, and sighed. “But this was nice. Really nice. Not just the sex, but the pudding too. And being invited to your house. And the kissing.”

Her tail gave a tiny, hopeful wag. “We could do it again, maybe. From time to time. If you’re good.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour.”

She kissed him again, softly, sweetly, the taste of caramel on his tongue, melting against his lips. He wrapped her up in his arms, felt her relax against his chest, bare skin on bare skin. God, he thought. She just fit. It was so intense, but so effortless in the same breath.

Eventually, the moment had to end. His boss, he explained, would be wondering what happened to him. He was going to catch hell for coming back so late. (Actually, he thought to himself, coming back late wasn’t a problem. The hell would come when he came back and Yuki caught him smelling of sex and QP). She came to the front door to see him off.

“If you want some pudding and they won’t let you have any, you can come and see me anytime,” she said, leaning up to give him a shy kiss on the nose.

“Thanks.” He looked at his feet, almost guiltily, knowing that he would come for pudding and probably want far more. With his eyes cast down, he saw something dripping slowly down her thigh. Well, he had come a lot. Probably better not to mention it.

It took a lot of willpower for him to walk away. But, after only a few false starts, he did – one foot boldly in front of the other, falling into the habitual soldier’s march that he knew so well. When he was far enough away that he didn’t feel like he’d come running back, he waved to her, and was pleased to see her waving back. It put a spring in his step as he started his way home.

In the distance, he thought he saw her touch her index finger to her leg and then press it to her lips before she closed her door. But there was no way to be sure.

The only thing he knew was that, between that memory and Yuki’s punishment, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.


	2. New Territory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes chronologically before the QP one, although it was written sometime afterwards, and is safe for work, mainly focusing on developing Jaune's backstory, personality and relationships with in-setting characters a little.

“Hey, mutt. Where’s your Halloween costume?”

He puts his hands down on the kitchen counter, sighs. Lets the knife fall from his fingers. That’s important. If you’re tempted to use a gun, you put the gun down. Knives are the same. Discipline. That’s what he wants. Discipline, order. Routine. So familiar and comforting in a new and garish world. Some things stay the same.

“I’m wearing it.”

Her mouth curls. She takes a long step closer. A power move. They used to do it all the time, back in the base. Personal space, territory. It was all mixed up in power. Who had it, who wanted it. His eyes are level with her lips, but he doesn’t look upwards to meet her gaze. “Well,” she says, languid, relaxed. “Not that your face isn’t scary enough, but what are you dressed as? A hobo?”

“A werewolf.”

She laughs, a sharp, curt little sound with no joy in it. His temples throb. Yuki really is the worst kind of asshole – the kind who wouldn’t even  _be_ an asshole if she didn’t deliberately put the effort in. There’s a softer side to her. He knows it. He’s seen it. Her, nuzzled against him in bed, lithe arms draped around his neck, her mouth pressing sweet little kisses against his collarbone. Happy, and satisfied. If she were only like that all the time – if she could only lose her obsession with power and status – he’d be head over heels for her.

“Wolf-man, huh? That’s not a costume, idiot. It’s your occupation.” She takes another step closer. His skin tingles. Too close. “Besides, what kind of werewolf wears a shirt?” She draws her finger down his chest, stops just above his belt. “Take it off.”

He swallows, looks her in the eye. “No.” His voice sounds neutral but firm. Not afraid, not angry. Maybe it’ll work.

“No?” she repeats. “No? Who are you to say no to me? I’m your boss. You’re standing in _my_ kitchen, eating _my_ sandwich, and you have the nerve to tell me–”

“Actually, it’s _my_ sandwich.” His voice doesn’t sound quite so neutral this time.

“Sure, sure. _Your_ sandwich, made with _my_ bread, _my_ meat and _my_ cheese, from _my_ refrigerator. I wonder whose sandwich that really is?”

“Keep it then,” he says, almost snarls, and brushes straight past her, clipping her with his shoulder. He feels a touch of resistance, but she can’t block him. She’s taller but he’s heavier, by a fair margin. “I’m going out.” He can hear her voice saying something, but doesn’t listen to the words. He slams the door behind him.

“Tch.” The sound of the door echoes through a kitchen that’s empty apart from her. She wonders if Tomato and Mimyuu are laughing at her right now. “Maybe he really is a werewolf,” she mutters sourly to herself. “Definitely seems like his time of month right now.”

She waits a minute or two to see if he’ll come back. She hopes he will. She wasn’t expecting him to stand his ground, and she would almost admire it if it didn’t get in the way of what she wants. But as time ticks by without his reappearance, she decides to look on the bright side, and helps herself to her hard-won sandwich.

* * *

Ebimanyou Town doesn’t make sense to him. It doesn’t seem like it was planned. It just seems to have sprouted up, organically, a mess of streets that go nowhere. He remembers cities built like grids, every angle a right angle. You always knew where you were. He never knows where he is, anymore.

He roams the streets idly. Just getting to know them with his feet. Selecting landmarks, place names, businesses. It’s a long process. If he had anywhere in mind, he could get a map; they taught him how to read one in his military days. But this is his home, for the time being. His turf. A map won’t give him a home field advantage, and he needs that right now.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do when he goes back to the base. If he slinks in with his tail between his legs, he’ll probably be spared any trouble. Yuki will let it slide, because she’ll know he’s ashamed. She’ll know she’s winning. And she loves to win. But he’s not sure if he’s got the energy to walk in with his head held high, knowing that it’ll lead to a confrontation. Is it worth the fight? He’s not sure. There has to be a limit to her. A boundary. If he doesn’t set one, she’ll push until he breaks. That’s how it works. That’s how it always works.

He frowns, stops dead in his tracks. People on the high street ford around him, tutting. He ignores them, and slips out a battered pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. He draws one out of the carton. Three left. He considers it for a moment, and puts it back.  _Never know if I’ll be able to get these again,_ he thinks.  _Gotta make ‘em last._

It’s not like they’re good cigarettes. That’s the appeal. It’s the roughest tobacco he’s ever smoked, like running a whetstone across his throat. Makes it easier not to smoke another one. Before basic training he had roll-ups, but then he started running out of breath in the middle of drills. So he switched to something shittier, and ended up smoking less. Only to calm his nerves, in the end. He heard people smoked them unironically down south, back when down south was a place he knew anything about.

He’s still thinking about it when the door of the coffee shop next to him swings open, and a girl darts out of it and straight into his chest. The impact doesn’t hurt, but she’s got a cup of coffee in each hand and both of them end up going over him. There is a precious split-second where it’s not so bad, but then the scalding liquid soaks through his fatigues and it  _is_ bad. The next few seconds are very noisy. The girl is panicking, trying to mop his chest with a paper napkin. He mostly swears.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going. I was thinking I should get back to work, and… Are you okay? I’m really, really sorry, really I am,” she says, and she keeps apologising until he holds his hands up for her to stop.

“I’m… fine,” he says. It’s only a small lie. He probably swore more than the situation demanded, but he’s had a bad day. Sometimes you just have to vent. “Sorry. You aren’t hurt?”

“Oh, no. I, uh, think it… mostly went on you.”

He sighs, and looks her up and down. She’s a little taller than he is – everybody seems to be – dressed in a shop apron, a pale blue button-down shirt and a pair of caramel-coloured corduroys. Practical shoes, he notes. He never really got why women always seemed to look at somebody’s shoes first. Then he realised that if they were looking at them, they probably picked them with the intention of being looked at. It wasn’t about what they were saying. It was what they were choosing to say, and why.

The part that really grabs his attention, though, is the pair of soft, slightly droopy bunny ears atop her head. He stiffens very slightly, suddenly aware of his tail, his sharp-toothed grin. A rabbit bumping into a wolf. If he were in her shoes, well… he’d probably be all nerves. But there’s something calming about those ears. Pastoral, that’s the word. They remind him of the countryside, wide-open spaces. An escape. Despite himself, he feels his sour mood evaporate a little.

“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t paying attention.” Truth. “It could have happened to anyone. I’d rather it happen to me, since I’m wearing a thick jacket.” False, but not very. He’d rather somebody else got scalded, but he can trust himself not to be an ass about it. Not too many strangers he could trust with that.

“L-let me make it up to you. C’mon, I’ll buy you a coffee. Or a tea! Just let me treat you,” she says. “Please?”

He frowns, lowering his head just a little. She seems a little pushy. But nervous, too. He puts his hand in his pocket, feels it land on his wallet. Empty, of course. He could probably do with something to drink, or eat, before he goes back to face the music… and she  _did_ say ‘please’. It feels like nobody ever says that to him these days.

“Ah… sure, if you like. Didn’t you say something about getting back to work, though?”

He says it carefully. He’s a wolf, and she’s a rabbit. If they’re going to get along, he needs to leave her an escape route. If she takes it, she takes it. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t.

“Oh, well… It’s not like I have a lot of customers.” She smiles ruefully. “If my regular needs me, she’s got my number. And I’d feel bad all day if I didn’t do anything to make it up to you.”

She grabs his hand, and in short order he’s marched into the coffee shop – fake teak, seats with red velour cushions, various ‘funny’ old-timey photographs hung in glass frames – and presented with a menu scribbled on a blackboard, full of strange and wonderful coffee preparations he knows nothing about.

“I’ll have what you’re having,” he says as they approach the counter. His stomach growls at him. He thinks back. He’s sure he had a few old coins stuffed in one pocket or another. “…ah, actually, do they sell sandwiches?”

“They sure do. Oh, hey Gina! Can I get two of the same again, please? And a panini.” She flicks her head towards him, looks him up and down. There’s a shrewd look in her eyes. “Probably something with meat on it.”

He smiles his thanks and sits down. Two of the same, she said. He lifts his lapel to his nose and tries to figure it out. Mostly coffee, from the smell, but there are other notes. Fabric softener, the smell of the tumble dryer… he isolates the scents one by one. Eventually, he finds it.

“Pumpkin spice?” he asks.

“Oh, so _that’s_ what you were doing!” she says. “I thought you were checking your deodorant.”

He frowns. “Do I need to?”

“Not at all. You smell fine. I just thought… well, that you were doing the _guy_ thing. You know how it is.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t. How is it?”

“Well…” she says, and hesitates a little, “most of the time, when you go out for coffee with a guy… the next time you see them, they’re covered in aftershave, going out of their way to impress you, that kind of thing.”

“Sorry. No aftershave. I’ve got a sensitive nose.” It’s a half-joke, and he gets a half-smile as a reward. A fair trade. “I can see why they might.”

“Because I’m cute?” she asks, the corner of her mouth twitching. Part of him wants to say yes, because she is, but he knows that’s not the right answer to give.

“Because you bumped into a perfect stranger and lost two cups of coffee, and immediately apologised and tried to make things right. A lot of people would just get mad at wasting the coffee.”

“I like to think people are a little nicer than that, on the whole, but I appreciate the thought.” Her nose wrinkles in amusement about something, but he doesn’t get the joke. “Ah! Our order’s up. I’ll grab it.”

She returns with two cups of pumpkin spice latte and what  _he_ would call a ham-and-cheese toastie, regardless of what the shop calls it. Ciabatta bread doesn’t impress him. He doesn’t know if it impresses anybody. He sets about the sandwich, washing it down with a gulp of coffee hot enough to make him wince.

“So, where are you from?” she asks. “You don’t look like you’re from around here.”

“What gives it away?”

“The accent, mostly. But your face is a little different from people around here, too. Sharper.” She speaks like an expert on the matter.

“I see. Well, I’m from the North.”

“Which part?”

He smiles bitterly. “Just… the North.”

There’s a lot that he could go into. How he got sent here, suddenly, with no warning and no accommodations. How he got taken in by the Waruda gang at Yuki’s behest, because she just wanted the status of being a legitimate employer. How he misses his family, his sisters and his brother, and the foods he ate at home. But even if she’s a nice person, it isn’t fair to burden her with all that weight. It’d put her off her coffee.

“Do I get a question now?” he asks. He tries to make his voice playful, and just about manages it. “Why pumpkin spice? I always got told it was overrated.”

To be honest, he can barely even tell the difference in taste. He has a fine nose, but he’s too used to eating ready meals and quick, tasteless snacks; his palate has been left a little stunted. But it’s still a curious choice in that it’s not one of the traditional coffee types he’s come to recognise.

“Why not? It’s festive. I don’t really get to relax on Christmas – long story – so I go all-out on Halloween instead.” She sniffs her coffee, takes a long and indulgent sip. “Besides, I don’t get why everybody goes crazy over Christmas food anyway. Autumn’s got so many good flavours, all in season. There’s so much good stuff you can bake, you know? But then winter comes, and nobody wants to bake anything that’s not gingerbread. Not that I don’t like Christmas, but when it comes to food, Halloween’s way better.” She pauses, and narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Which do you prefer? Autumn or winter?”

“…Ah. A year or two ago, I would have said autumn. But I’m looking forward to winter this year. I miss… snow. It reminds me of home.” He takes another bite of his sandwich. It’s better than the coffee; pumpkin spice is hit or miss, but ham and cheese have never steered him wrong.

“Home?” she asks. She steeples her fingers over her coffee cup, as if warming them in the steam. “Tell me about it.”

Hesitantly, he begins. The great crossroads, the grey flagged stones, the languid but efficient cars that drove through the streets. The cold that stole between your bedsheets and wormed its ways into your bones, so your knees ached when you woke up. The warm summers, the wide open spaces, fields of wheat and corn bred for resilience instead of yield. Once he begins, he finds he can’t stop; the words he was groping for begin to tumble freely from his mouth, and all at once the true extent of his homesickness hits him. This is less a different country, and more a different world. He tells her about his mother, his brother and his sisters, the warm winter stew they used to make together, the old church with the carved buttresses and the four spires around the dome, as if the architect hadn’t known whether to make it orthodox or not –

“Oh! Is that the one that has a gargoyle on each side, but the one on front is missing the head?” she asks.

His eyes narrow, and she claps her hands to her mouth as if she’s let slip a huge secret. He can see her eyes moving frantically as she tries to think of her next move. He sighs, and puts his palm flat on the table, a gesture of calm. Whether it’s for himself or her, he’s not sure.

“How do you know that?” He taps his index finger on the table as he speaks. It doesn’t make a sound, but it keeps his hands busy. “You don’t look like the type to get into architecture.” Tap, tap, tap. “And that gargoyle only broke recently, anyway. Three years, tops. The head almost hit the priest when it fell off.” Stillness. “Talk to me.”

“Ah… ahahaha… I, um… I get around, you know? Lots of travel. You could say there’s almost nowhere I haven’t been.” She takes a sip of her coffee, holds the cup up in front of her face like a shield. It’s not warm, but she’s sweating.

“But why _there_? There’s nothing to see in that town. Just a quiet place in the country.”

“Ah… well, it was… what’s the word? A flyover. I stopped there just long enough to take a look around, and then, whoosh! Straight to the next destination.”

He muses on that. Something doesn’t quite add up, but he’s not sure what; it’s as plausible a story as any, although he doesn’t know why a girl like her would be travelling in such a cold land by herself. The tip of his tail is tingling, like it always does when he’s suspicious or obsessing about something.

But, he thinks, she doesn’t seem like a bad sort. She might be keeping secrets, but she’s an awful liar; he doesn’t think he has anything to be afraid of from a person like that. Everybody’s entitled to their own little secrets. After all, doesn’t he work for a criminal organisation? It’s not exactly like he’s in a position to judge. It’s going to annoy him, but the right thing to do – the only thing he really  _can_ do – is let it slide.

The silence stretches for half a minute before he speaks. “So… uh. You think you’ll go there again anytime soon?”

Her expression is still wary, but he can see a little bit of relief creeping onto her face. “A-ahh… maybe a little later this year, actually. Why?”

“Well…” He hesitates, takes a sip of coffee, and then ploughs on. “If it’s not too much trouble, could I ask you to deliver some letters for me? My family is still there, and I want to send them a bit of money. I can pay you. I just… don’t really trust the postal service, that’s all.”

“Ah,” she says, sagely. “Don’t worry. I have a friend who has that exact same problem. They always run.”

“That they do,” he agrees solemnly.

“Well, I guess I’ll have room in my sa – my _suitcase_ for a few letters.” The smile returns to her face. “It’s good that you’re still thinking of your family first, even though you’re alone out here. You’re a good man, Jaune.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Nobody ever calls me a good man. Closest I get is ‘good dog’.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a good dog, either,” she replies, and stands up. She has, he notices, very long legs. Probably not the time. Definitely not the time. “I have to run, but if you take the third alleyway off of main street, you’ll find my shop. It’s called the R-bit Room. If I’m not at the counter, just ask for Aru. Drop by when you’ve got all your letters in order, and we’ll see about getting them delivered. Or, you know, just drop by if you want to chat. You’re always welcome!”

She beams at him, a bright and guileless smile warms him far more than the coffee managed to. A bouncing bunny, always in a rush, her face changing expressions as quickly as the wind. In spite of himself, he feels a little tongue-tied. “Um, thanks. Aru. I’ll do that.”

“Make sure you do! If you’re quick about it, I might be able to move my trip up a little bit,” she winks, and claps him on the shoulder as she walks past. “Have a good day, alright?”

She leaves her with a cup of coffee, a half-finished sandwich, and a little glimmer of hope for something good in the future. It’s probably more than anybody’s given him in months. A rare unaffected smile blooms on his face as he finishes a lunch he didn’t expect to have. He was right. She wasn’t a bad sort at all. Far from it. A little naive, though. After all, he thinks with a wry grin, she called him ‘a good man’.

He finishes his coffee and his sandwich, leaves a few of his old coins as a tip, and walks out into the street with a renewed spring in his step. He wonders what what he should do for the rest of the day, and wonders when Yuki will have calmed down. He wonders what kind of shop Aru runs.

It is only later that he wonders how the hell she knew his name.


	3. Growing Pains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place after the QP story chronologically, and is a growthfic featuring Aru. It was my first time catering to that particular niche, so hopefully it turned out okay.

“…So I said, ‘no _way_ you got attacked by a giant pine tree.’ And QP said, ‘I totally did!’ So we went back the next day, and sure enough, there was just wood _everywhere…_ ”

Jaune smiled as he listened to Aru talk, and dabbed the corners of his mouth experimentally with a napkin. Table manners weren’t the kind of thing that came easily to him. He’d grown up with siblings, so dinner had always been an ‘eat fast or eat nothing’ kind of affair, especially since his older sister was a pretty decent cook. The army hadn’t been that much different. He knew a little bit, but if you presented him with more than one fork, his gut instinct was just to use the bigger one for any and all courses.

But, while he wasn’t exactly trying to impress Aru – not _exactly_ – he did value her opinion of him. She was kind, gentle, occasionally bought him lunch, and had a very soft and alluring pair of ears that he would very much like the opportunity to stroke before he died. She was worth at least attempting to keep his elbows off the table for, which was more or less the best compliment he could give anybody.

“So, what have you been up to?” she asked, pointing at him with her fork. There was a shred of pastry on it. Usually when they met up in cafes, she went for a salad, but today she’d gone for an oversized pecan plait that she was trying to eat as if it were a genuine meal. Mostly it seemed like an excuse for her to have a very large cup of coffee. She seemed to be one of those people who loved coffee, but couldn’t make a good cup to save her life; most of the barista knew her orders off by heart.

“Well…” he began, and paused. That was the tricky part of these conversations: finding something he’d done in the last week or so that wasn’t quasi-legal or incredibly dangerous. Working for Waruda was interesting, and compared to certain paramilitary groups he’d run into in service their idea of world conquest was positively benign, but it wasn’t a day job he was particularly proud of. “I tried making pudding.”

Aru’s nose wrinkled. “‘Tried’?”

“It went real bad. I burned the caramel.” He’d accidentally let it bubble over, and it had smoked and spat and… it just hadn’t been a great time for anybody in possession of a finely tuned nose. Just the thought of it made him want to reach for a cigarette. Although the primary purpose of his occasionally smoking habit was to calm his nerves (and make him poor), it also blunted his senses of smell and taste for a while – a very useful side benefit for choking down field rations and ignoring the scent of spent cartridges.

“Uuu... I could just go for some pudding right now. I get so hungry in Autumn, you know? Everything’s so good to eat, and it’s cheaper because it’s in season,” Aru said dreamily. “Have you ever had miso-glazed eggplant before?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s, uh… a thing that exists?”

“You haven’t lived,” she sad, eyelids half-closed in blissful contemplation. “This is why I always put on weight this time of year.”

He shifted a little uncomfortably. Weight was one of those topics he had learned to steer clear of. It never ended well. One wrong move and people were quite happy to demonstrate how much or little they weighed, often by sitting on your chest. There were worse things that could happen to him than having Aru sit on his chest, but it _was_ a public restaurant. There was a certain level of decorum he needed to uphold.

“Don’t worry,” she said, catching his eye. Her tone was a little more wry. “I don’t worry about how much I weigh. I burn it all off in the winter anyway. It just means I’m a bit more… you know, _round_ at the moment.

He _had_ noticed that, if he was honest. He honestly didn’t think it was a bad look for her; in a platonic, friendly way he thought that her face looked a little cuter when it wasn’t as thin; in a non-platonic way, Aru very occasionally wore tops that showed off her belly, which was a dangerous weapon most of the year and absolutely to _die_ for at the moment. He hadn’t had a good chance to see what the extra pounds had done to her thighs, but his imagination was very positive on the topic.

“ _Supple_ is the word I’d use,” he replied.

“Supple. I _like_ that,” she giggled. “Oh, but speaking of pudding, I heard you made friends with QP.”

‘Made friends’. Well, that was definitely one way of putting it. QP, defender of Ebimanyou Town, part-time college student and full-time pudding evangelist, had taken it upon herself to teach him the true joy of her favourite cuisine. True enough, he had discovered that a well-made pudding was a little taste of heaven. He had _also_ discovered that if you take a wolf and a dog of opposite genders, mix in some pheromones and a dash of natural chemistry, and then bake in an enclosed space for an hour or two, you had a recipe for a _real_ taste of heaven.

At the time, it had been something beautiful and spontaneous and extremely pleasurable, and he felt his tail starting to wag of its own accord just from the memory of it. It wasn’t purely a physical thing, either; after holding her in his arms, he found she’d occupied a newly created spot in his own personal cosmology. There was a pull to her, an attraction, and he felt like he might enjoy nothing more than to let himself drift into QP’s orbit.

Then, after about twenty-four hours, the terror set in.

Yes, it had felt great. Yes, she had gouged out a little spot in his heart and was happily living in it rent-free. But he had had sex with a girl who could be very charitably called ‘volatile’, who had a vague and slightly terrifying amount of raw power, and who happened to be his employer’s biggest enemy. He hadn’t quite figured out what he was going to do about it, besides experiencing a vague dread about the near future.

“She was talking about you the other day,” Aru carried on, pleasantly unaware that she had dumped her conversation partner into an existential quandary he had been trying not to think about too hard. “I think she’s really taken a shine to you. I know she can be a bit, y’know, full on, but she’s a good person. One of the best.”

“Y-yeah. Definitely top five. Maybe even top three,” Jaune murmured, mostly to himself. “Very full on. Absolutely.”

“She was asking if I could get your number for her, since I mentioned we were friends, and I realised I don’t even have your number myself. Why don’t we sort that out?”

He frowned. “I don’t have a phone anymore. My old one got shot. Twice.”

Aru blinked. “Twice?”

“It didn’t stop ringing the first time.”

Aru blinked, tilted her head, and decided to erase the last few seconds from her memory. She did not, particularly, want to consign her new friend to the ‘crazy guy who shot his own phone’ bin just yet. He had so much _potential_ to be an actual, well-rounded person, unlike all of her current friends who were entirely dominated by their own obsessions or quirky character traits. Him not having a usable phone was a problem though – and like all problems, it could pretty easily be solved by throwing money at it.

“Well, why don’t we go out shopping for a phone tomorrow, then? I can’t leave the store alone for the whole day today, but I should be able to clear my schedule,” she suggested.

“I don’t exactly have that kind of cash.”

“I’ll lend you some. I can’t just leave you running around without a phone. What if you need to call somebody for help?”

He grinned wryly, his lips tight and thin. “Would you call me cynical if I asked where the catch was?”

“No catch,” she said. “Just pay me back when you can. It doesn’t even have to be money. The Bank of Aru accepts food, clothes, good deeds, back rubs–”

His ears perked up. “Back rubs?”

“Well, sure. I end up lifting a lot, and my circulation isn’t that great, so I could always use a massage.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I’d ask QP, but she always puts too much force into it. Sometimes, there’s a fine line between giving a massage and being a chiropractor.”

Jaune nodded sagely. Extended physical contact with QP seemed to be a dangerous game, no matter what the context.

For a few minutes they talked over the details of the trip – where they would meet, what time, and how many massages it would cost. Aru was of the opinion that it was two massages to the dollar; Jaune was of the opinion that the massage industry wouldn’t exist if the going rate wasn’t a bit more than that. The conversation screeched to a halt when a familiar face sidled into the cafe, and started making plaintiff eyes – or _eye_ , singular, as the case may be – at the menu.

Despite her being one of his fellow Waruda, Jaune did not know Krila particularly well, mainly because she barely ever showed up. Her official role was to infiltrate QP’s group and make sure they didn’t have any anti-Waruda plots brewing, but QP wasn’t really the planning type. If she _did_ make a plan, it usually only had two steps: show up, spew bullets. In effect, Krila did nothing, and that was the way everybody seemed to like it. Her only other claim to fame was being the nuttiest member of an organisation where ‘mad scientist’ was an existing job role.

He was very careful not to look directly at her. Although almost everything that came out of Krila’s mouth was meaningless arcane bullshit, he didn’t necessarily want her to start a conversation and use the remaining 5% of her vocabulary to implicate him in a criminal organisation in front of Aru. Mostly she seemed content to stare at the sandwiches, most of which couldn’t stare back.

“Oh, Krila!” Aru called, and, to Jaune’s great concern, began to wave. “How are you today?”

Oh, he thought to himself glumly. Of course. Krila is QP’s friend, and QP is Aru’s friend. Everybody in the whole damn town knew each other, because they were all quirky lunatics with their own bizarre social web of rivalry, intrigues, and arguments about food.

“I bid thee greetings,” Krila intoned. She advanced upon them in a way she probably thought was dramatic and menacing, but was just a little bit too fast, and sped up as time went on until it was a kind of barely restrained scuttle. “It is rare to witness such a convening of superluminal beasts.”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” Jaune said, as kindly as he could.

Krila sniffed a great and mighty sniff. “It’s to do with the moon.”

“I mean… that’s not _completely_ wrong, but…”

“Just let her have it,” Aru whispered gently. “It sounds cool, and that’s all that matters to her. Besides, I like it. We could start a band with a name like that.”

“I, Krilalaris, am currently in a pit of untold misery. I have been forced by nefarious circumstance to renounce my allegiance to the Dark Gods, and instead must pledge my loyalty to the spirits of Balanced Nutrition and serve them as a Diet Warrior, or I shall take upon the countenance of Abbadon, the gaping and glutinous maw that swallows the souls of…”

If Krila had a talent, it was monologuing. Jaune privately thought she should have been in theatre, because not only did the whole world seemed to draw to a halt the second she opened her mouth, it _stayed_ that way for long, torturous seconds – sometimes _minutes_ – until she had ejaculated a full portion of nonsense from her frontal cortex. He took a glance across the table, and although Aru maintained a benefic smile, he could see her eyes beginning to glaze over.

“...such that I entreat ye, with your slender legs, to advise me upon the best selection of food with which to maintain a physique bereft of corpulence,” Krila finished.

It took a moment for Aru’s brain to recall all the words and translate them into something that made sense; as always, her shopkeeper’s instinct was to repeat the order back to her. “So, what you’re saying is that you’ve been putting on weight recently, and you want to know what to eat to lose weight?”

“Don’t say salad. Salad is an instrument of calamity. Spinach is especially insidious.”

“We-ellll… I don’t really know, to be honest. I don’t pay that much attention to my diet, so I end up putting on weight from time to time as well,” Aru replied. “Have you tried–”

“Falsehood! Treachery! Do not besmirch the pride of a Diet Warrior with your patronising! My dark eye can detect no flab on your belly, no bulge to your waist!”

Aru’s ears drooped slightly as she realised it was going to be one of _those_ conversations, the ones that inevitably preceded a close-fought aerial bullet duel. She didn’t want to have a bullet duel. She wanted another danish pastry. “Ahaha… Trust me, I _do_ gain weight. It just goes to my thighs.”

Jaune had stayed quiet up to that point, mostly because he had it on good authority that Aru could handle herself. He did think, however, that he would like to see these thighs, to ascertain their meatiness. For adjudication purposes, of course.

“That’s even worse! You dare to speak to me as an equal, but you do not even comprehend the pain of those for whom weight gain becomes an increase in… in…”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aru said encouragingly.

“...gluteal dimensions!” Krila spat. “Where is your muffin top? Where are the belly rolls, the flabby arms?! You are a scoundrel!”

Aru’s smile remained gentle, but there was now something behind it – an aura of sternness, maybe even menace. “Krila, have you been drinking caffeine? You know you’re not meant to drink caffeine.”

“Caffeine is a slimming aid! It boosts metabolism!!!”

“It makes you _weird_. And don’t use more than one exclamation point with _me_ , Krila. You know how it’ll end.”

“You are a demon! I curse you! May you one day know the horror of having your body grow, with nothing you can do about it!” Krila howled, before turning on her heel and barrelling out of the shop. There was an awed silence in the cafe before the hum of conversation rushed in to fill the void, like the tide rushing back to meet the shore.

“…what just happened?” Jaune asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aru said, and sighed. “It’s one of those things you get used to when you live in this town long enough. She’ll go home, cry a bit, say sorry the next day, and it’ll all be fine. I was going to tell her to exercise anyway, so if she keeps that pace all the way back, she might get somewhere. Would you like a scone?”

* * *

For once, he dressed up. It wasn’t that he was normally a slovenly guy. He just found that combat fatigues were efficient, stylish, and meant he didn’t have to figure out what bits of his wardrobe complimented each other.

But he understood that, when you went out with a woman for shopping-related purposes, they liked you to look like you were happy to be there. If you looked bedraggled and scruffy, it reflected badly on them. At worst it made them look like your carer, which was not an endearing situation, romantically speaking.

Besides, there was a certain image about army fatigues in public life. People looked at you and they thought, ‘this is a guy who’s never been in the army, but who owns a collection of guns and drives out on weekends to shoot things and may or may not collect non-perishable food items en masse so as to wait out the nuclear apocalypse in a bunker where, in the event of said nuclear apocalypse, they will _definitely_ commit suicide sometime in week 2 of their post-nuclear death world experience’. Jaune was under no illusions as to his survival chances in that scenario; the best option was absolutely to die and then hope you reincarnated as a scorpion or something else suitably radiation-proof. Maybe being a scorpion was an excellent life. You didn’t know until you’d tried.

In the meantime, however, he had scraped together the remains of his civilian wardrobe and put together an ensemble consisting of one pale blue shirt (ironed, no burns), a pair of jeans (slightly creased, offensive to connoisseurs of the garment), a belt that he had been taught how to strangle a man with, and a suit jacket that was probably tan but might have been taupe and could, if it tried very hard and applied itself, been sandstone. He’d kept his combat boots, however, because there was only so far you could push a man before he broke and formal shoes were definitely on the wrong side of that line.

He was not, on the whole, pushing the boundaries of sartorial elegance, but it was a visible effort, which was the most important thing for an effort to be. He reached the meeting place ten minutes early, leaned himself up against a lamppost, and lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. There really was nothing quite like a cigarette to remind your body that the biggest danger to it was the idiot in control.

Five minutes before they had agreed to meet, he spotted Aru’s ears bobbing along above the heads of the crowd and couldn’t help but smile at the sight. It was one of those oddly satisfying things, like brown paper packages and skipping stones across a lake. People sometimes said they felt the same way about seeing his tail wag, but he couldn’t really comment either way on account of not having eyes on his ass.

She’d gone for a more causal style than he had, with a plaid button-down shirt and black pants. She’d rolled the sleeves up to the elbow, which definitely gave her a kind of lovable, country-gal aura. He could imagine her hoeing a carrot patch, or being part of an angry torch-and-pitchfork mob – somewhere in the back, hopefully, where she’d be nice and safe.

“Wow, you’re looking snappy today,” she said, extricating herself from the herd with very polite and deliberate use of elbows. “I feel bad. I wish I could have worn something cuter.”

“Clothes aren’t cute. People are, he said, and then more quietly, “Besides, you look cute enough to me.”

“Ahhh… I’m glad. You know, I had an outfit all picked out, but I just couldn’t fit into it, so I had to borrow some clothes from a friend. I swear I wore that outfit only last week, too… The weight really creeps up on you,” she moaned. “Oh well. You’re sure I don’t look too bad?”

“You look great,” he said, because it was objectively correct. “I especially like the he- oh.”

He blinked as he looked down at her feet. He had a sister. She had educated him in the importance of looking at footwear. You can tell a lot about a man and/or woman by what kind of socks they wore, she said. He didn’t necessarily buy it, but he did know that if a girl spent seventy dollars on a pair of shoes, she damn well wanted you to look at them from time to time.

“Sorry,” he said, and shook his head. “I thought you were wearing heels. You looked taller than usual. I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Must have been too excited.”

“You know, I can’t really imagine you excited,” she said, and gave him a friendly elbow. “I bet you were like a little puppy.”

“No comment.”

“Haha. But no, I can’t really wear heels. I’m a little… well, you know. Rabbits tend to have pretty big feet. I know it’s silly, but I’m a little sensitive about it. Besides, this town’s _full_ of cobblestones, right? It’s uncomfortable enough to walk around, even in sneakers.”

“I’m glad I wear boots all the time. I don’t even feel them,” he replied. “Well, look on the bright side. Your feet might ache, but at least you’ve got a few free massages if you want them. I still have calluses from basic training, so it’s not like I’m going to find them embarrassing.”

She smiled, although a little ruefully. “I’ll… um, I’ll think about it. Honestly, I woke up with my whole body aching. I can’t wait to get home for a nice, hot bath.”

This, for Jaune, was too many things to think about at once. For one, he had to internally debate offering her a full-body massage; for two, he had to entertain and subsequently archive the mental image of Aru covered in bubbles and very little else; third, he had to deal with the instinctive neurotic panic that came from a girl admitting she absolutely wanted to get their little shopping trip done as soon as possible. He heard himself saying something, hopefully pleasant, but otherwise focused on reloading his mental cache for the next assault.

“Anyway, sorry to be such a downer. Let’s go and pick you out a new phone! I’ll be the first person with your new number, so I’ll give it to QP when I see her next,” she said, starting to walk.

As they fell into step together, he couldn’t help noticing that he was… well, he wasn’t having necessarily having _trouble_ keeping up. He’d been through basic, and he knew how to march, without even factoring in the easy lope that came as part and parcel of the wolf genetic package. But he was definitely having adjust himself to match her longer strides, and he didn’t recall having to do it when he’d met Aru before. She _was_ taller than him, but not _that_ much taller. It did give him a lovely vantage point of her back, which was currently highly fascinating. Whoever had lent her the shirt was not, apparently, that much bigger than she was, because it was riding up a little bit and exposing just a tiny bit of pale flesh above the belt, as well as letting her fluffy little cotton tail peek out. He never usually got to see her tail. It was like he’d been granted a special opportunity, and he tried to enjoy it while he could.

But, even if he had to hurry a little, it felt… _natural_ to stand beside Aru. There was no friction, no resistance; it was just a place he could be quite happily. Maybe even that he was _meant_ to be. He felt like she treated him as an equal. That he had value. He could fall for a girl like that. He might have already.

He trailed along in her wake as she deftly strung her way through nameless backstreets and alleys, having apparently decided she had accrued enough wear and tear on her elbows to justify avoiding more crowds. Even so, the few people they ran into had smiles for her, even the occasional greeting. Sometimes shopkeepers would shout a hello as they went past, out of some kind of retail work camaraderie. Being around her made the town feel smaller, friendlier – less of a town and more of a very rotund village. Having grown up in a village himself, it was something he could appreciate.

“Here we are,” Aru said, screeching to a halt in front of what seemed like a fairly nondescript shop. “The owner here owes me a favour or two, so we should be able to get a great discount.”

He nodded sagely. “I see. So that’s why you were so eager to buy a phone for me. Cashing in on a favour before the expiry date.”

“Haha… well, you know. The longer it goes outstanding, the harder it is to collect on. Shall we?”

Her ears brushed against the doorframe as she entered the shop, and she flicked them back irritably. It was a little dim inside, but there were an array of phones – some more outdated than others – displayed behind glass cases, with dummy phones mounted on stands. The owner, a small, wiry man with old-fashioned spectacles, nodded silently as they entered.

“So, Jaune. What kind of phone do you want?”

“Something that won’t break when I shoo– uh, drop it.”

“Um… hah. Is there anything else you’re looking for?”

“Long battery life. Oh, and some memory so I can save photos.”

With those somewhat vague specifications, they set about wandering around the shop. Every so often Aru would call him over to show him a particularly promising model, and they’d stand shoulder to shoulder reading the specs and handling the dummy a little.

“Wow. This one’s pretty cheap, but it’s still super small and lightweight. They really make phones tiny nowadays,” Aru commented.

Jaune furrowed his eyebrows. The phone she was holding _did_ look pretty small in her hands. But he’d already picked it up earlier, and it hadn’t felt that small. Come to think of it, last time he checked, Aru had fairly petite, feminine hands and his were rough, large, and soldierly. So _thinking_ about it, shouldn’t the phone look bigger when she held it?

He was about to say something when he heard a very small ‘crack’, and he looked around just quickly enough to see a shirt button rebounding off the glass case in front of Aru. The reflection in the case was clear enough for him to make out some newly exposed cleavage, and see that Aru’s eyes had gone extremely wide.

“A-are you alright?” he asked, and wondered if he should have.

Aru said nothing, but he could see her mouth moving as if she was muttering to herself. And then, at least, she turned and her heel and looked at him, suddenly _furious_ , her deep red eyes piercing him to the bone.

“Oh. My. God. This _freaking_ town!” she said, in a voice that was too shrill to be a shout but lacked none of the volume. “I swear, when I catch up to her, she’s going to regret it for _months–_ ”

“Slow down, what’s going–” he began as she strode toward him, but then he caught a better look at the front of her shirt and the words died in his throat. Not only had the button popped off, but he could just make out a loosely hanging bra strap underneath, snapped by some irresistible force. Wisely, he shut his mouth, because the bit of his brain currently active was not the one that should be on talking duty.

“It’s Krila! I should have known. I should have _known!_ I _thought_ things were weird today – that I couldn’t fit into my clothes, that my whole body ached, that my feet were killing me,” she said, speaking quickly and irritably. “What did she say to me yesterday? ‘May you one day know the horror of having your body grow’. What’s her main act at that circus? Making her plush lion grow into a giant monster! She was trying to curse me as a joke, but she did it for _real!_ I’m sorry, but I need to get back to the R-Bit Room, right now. I’ll come out and get you a phone some other time, okay?”

“Aru, wait. You’re… um. Bouncing. A bit,” he said, making vague motions in front of his own chest. “Here, take my jacket.”

“Thanks… But are you sure? You might not get this back,” she warned as he took off his coat. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I get the feeling this is going to get a lot less gradual the longer it goes on.”

“All the more reason to get back to the R-Bit Room,” he said, and grabbed her hand. “Come on. I’ll come with you.”

She nodded grimly, and started to walk in long, angry strides – long enough that he felt himself having to jog to keep up.

She had to duck just to not hit her head on the doorway as they left.

* * *

The sounds of Aru’s feet got noticeably heavier as they hurtled towards the R-Bit Room.

They moved quickly. Just as Aru had predicted, the rate of growth seemed to be accelerating as time went on. What started as a jog for Jaune very quickly became a run, and then a sprint, broken only by the occasional stop as Aru, hissing, adjusted clothes she was very rapidly outgrowing. About halfway to the shop, she pulled him into an alleyway, yanked off her shoes and threw them into his hands; he could see where the sneaker fabric had begun to stretch and deform in a futile attempt to accommodate her swiftly-growing feet.

“Do you want my boots?” he asked. “You can…”

She shook her head, her chin now level with the top of his ears, her ponytail whipping around like a flail. “I’ll fly. It’s easier this way. Can you keep up?”

“I’ll try.”

“Ugh, wait a minute,” she said, and irritably jerked the belt out of her pants, tossing it aside like a live snake. “I could hardly breathe with that thing on.”

He felt the ground shudder a little as she lifted off. He’d been around QP, and Yuki; he knew what it was like to chase after a flying girl. But Aru seemed to have so much more… _momentum_ than they had. A motorbike at 100 miles per hour was impressive; a train at 100 miles per hour was a force of nature. That was how the difference felt.

The chase continued, and little by little, he began to fall behind. Even though she was only flying a few feet above him, Aru was much faster having been freed from gravity. He caught up whenever they had to turn; she could no longer bring herself to a dead stop like he’d seen QP do, and had to slowly bank and adjust her momentum. When he was close, he heard the ominous sound of strained fabric; every now and then, he would catch a glimpse of falling buttons out of the corner of his eye. His jacket, which had been _just about_ big enough to cover her when he gave it to her, looked more like an undersized waistcoat on her now; the arms of the jacket were stretched tight against her skin.

Just as the fatigue of the run truly began to hit him, the R-Bit Room swam into view. Aru barrelled forward, the air audibly being forced aside by her bulk, and as she drew to an ungainly halt and began to touch down, he reached the door and opened it with such force that he felt the old hinges protest. She took one giant step, and–

There was the sound of clothes undergoing sudden and _catastrophic_ failure _._ Aru’s pants, which had only survived so long due to a partially elasticated waistband, finally gave up under the strain. The button popped, the legs burst, and what was left slide down and tangled itself around her ankles. He saw, very briefly, the forlorn shreds of what had, presumably, once been her panties and were now barely even fit to be confetti. He saw the shock on her face, the blush that quickly followed it, and although she very quickly moved her hand to cover herself, it wasn’t fast enough to stop him from seeing a patch of well-kept blue pubic hair. With her hands occupied, it became clear that the button on his jacket had long since disappeared, and it swung open to reveal huge, round breasts that swayed with each gasping breath, with pert pink nipples the size of coffee cups. There was a dead silence as they looked at each other in the empty street, broken only by laboured breathing.

“Inside, now!” he said, clapping his free hand over his eyes and holding the door open with the other.

She barrelled past him, barely able to squeeze into the door; he felt what he _thought_ , but could not tell and would not ask, was her bare ass pressing against him as she clumsily squashed herself into the space. He _felt_ the heat of her body, like a radiator in the crisp autumn air, and heard the boom of her feet rushing across the wooden floorboards.

“Jaune, close the door!” she shouted. Her voice was deeper now, more sonorous; it reverberated in his bones, and he had no choice but to obey. As he turned, he saw her huddling behind a counter that had previously come up to her chest and now struggled even to cover up her genitals as she stood behind it. She had thrown aside his jacket, ripped beyond repair, and was holding one arm up to shield her breasts.

“There’s a Closed For Business sign in that corner there. Put it up,” she commanded, gesturing with one huge hand. “I’m going into the warehouse. _Don’t_ follow me, and _don’t_ let anybody else in. Not Krila, not QP, not _anybody_. I’m counting on you, okay?”

She turned, opened a door with perhaps thirteen different ‘Employees Only’ signs plastered around it, and disappeared. He heard the sound of great feet thudding down a flight of stairs. Then, silence.

Quietly, he drew the curtains across the window, put up the sign, and sat down on the visitor’s couch to catch his breath. He didn’t know why Aru had a visitor’s couch when she only had one regular customer, but it was soft and puffy and reminded him of the couch in QP’s house, on which he had enjoyed pudding and then other, equally delectable treats. His mind fell backwards in time, skipping between moments – QP kissing him and nuzzling against his chest in the afterglow, the hard tips of her nipples scraping against his chest, the sheer animal _smell_ of her that drove him wild. She’d had such perky breasts. Aru’s were different. Bigger, more voluptuous. They had looked as if his whole hand would sink into the flesh. Like they were the softest thing in the world.

QP wanted his number. Aru wanted his number. He groaned. This was how life got _complicated_. This was how he made mistakes. But his imagination refused to be tamed. His nose, more finely tuned than a human’s, had begun to recall QP’s scent, the invitation that reached down into his heart and gently yanked it out of his body for her to play with for an hour or two. It was so… _intense_. _QP_ was intense. The time they’d spent together had been mind-blowing, even perfect, but he didn’t know if he could withstand it day after day, as a regular romance, and he didn’t know if he could bear to see that intensity flicker and die. Aru… he wondered how Aru would smell if she got aroused as she was right now. With that huge body. Normally Aru’s smell was comforting to him. Pastoral, that was the word… but right now, he got the feeling it would be very different.

He sighed, and began to rummage around in the tatters of his jacket for his lighter and a cigarette. He usually tried not to have more than one a day, but it had been an exciting day. When he found them, they were still warm from the heat of Aru’s body. He sat. He breathed. He smoked. His mind wandered, and eventually, his body came back under his control. Every so often, he heard movement from underneath him – shuffling, rearranging. Boxes being dragged around, pallets being moved. He tried not to think about it too hard.

“ **Jaune?”**

Aru’s voice came from deep down in the depths. It boomed. It shook the timbers of her shop.

“ **Take down the curtains and throw them into the warehouse,”** she commanded. **“Don’t come down. And** _ **don’t**_ **look.”**

His knees ached when he stood up. It took him a few minutes to unrig the curtains – interior decorating had never really been his thing – and when he was done, he bundled then up into a massive ball of red linen, closed his eyes, and tossed it blindly into the warehouse door.

“I threw them,” he shouted.

There was the sound of something very large shifting about under the floor. He tried not to move in case the ground shifted underneath him. There was silence for a little while, and then, a low, but very _loud,_ grunt of frustration.

“… **Hah. I… think I’m going to need some help. Can you come down? I’m… well, I’m about as decent as I can** _ **get**_ **right now.”**

He stubbed out his cigarette in a cut-glass ashtray on the counter, and considered his options. It occurred to him, very distantly, that he could just walk out of the front door right now. He didn’t _have_ to deal with giant rabbits in gloomy basements. But he was absolutely going to, and he was going to do it for a reason he didn’t quite understand but that was clad in iron. No matter how big Aru got, she was Aru. He’d never been afraid of Aru before. He didn’t see a reason to start now.

Very quietly, he began to descend the stairs. He almost felt like he should have had a torch. He _definitely_ felt like an adventurer trespassing in an underground temple, and possibly about to meet a dragon. Time would very much tell.

The first thing to hit him was a wave of heat. Not like an oven, but almost like a sauna. He closed his eyes as it washed over him, and they were still closed when the smell hit – the warm, tangy scent of skin, mixed in with an undertone of quiet panic, the raw edges of spent adrenaline and nervousness. The scent of a living thing. It woke him up where the heat tried to lure him to sleep.

Opening his eyes, he spotted Aru. Not, necessarily, that he could have missed her. She was… well, _gigantic,_ leaning against the back wall of the warehouse, legs bent in front of her, with the shop’s curtains draped over her groin and her arm still held across her chest to hide her breasts. Nothing, he thought idly, could have hidden _those_ breasts. He felt his tail begin to wag happily, and he had to consciously command it to remain still.

“ **JAUNE? I THINK THE GROWTH HAS STOPPED.”**

Her voice seemed to come from inside his own chest, inside his own body. His bones sang with it. For a moment, he couldn’t move. His knees felt wobbly from the vibrations.

“ **MY CLOTHES – WHAT’S LEFT OF THEM – ARE IN THAT CORNER. CAN YOU FIND MY PHONE AND CALL KRILA FOR ME?”**

He felt her great, red eyes peering at him as he moved. He tried _very_ hard not to look at her legs. God, even with her legs bent like they were, her knees were higher than his head. She could probably pick him up the palm of her hand. She could take him and play with him, as if he were her toy. He knew she _wouldn’t_ because she was Aru, but she _could_. A shiver – not entirely out of nervousness – ran down his spine; his tail gave one happy wag before he could stop it. He felt sweat beading on his forehead as he picked over the tattered rags of her clothes, trying out of a sense of gentlemanly obligation not to dwell too hard on the scraps of pink, lacy material that had once been her underwear.

“Found it,” he called, extracting a little black oblong from the ruins. The screen was a little cracked, but came to life as he operated the touchscreen. Aru gave him whispered instructions that felt like shouts, and soon he had Krila’s number dialed.

“ _Greetings, unwary caller. I, the great Krilalaris, have heard your entreaties and deigned to communicate with you. Have you called to draw upon my dark powers for augury, or–”_

“It’s Jaune,” he said flatly, switching her to speakerphone. “And I’m in a hurry. I have a question. Work-related.”

“ _Hmph. You could have let me finish, you know. How will I practice the dark intonations? But I, as a noble Diet Warrior, will hear your questions. Speak!”_

“You turn Leo into a giant monster for your circus trick, right? Is there any way to undo it when you cast a spell like that?”

“ _Fool! My curses are a gift from the beast gods, and their power is unparalleled. They are impossible to break, and persist without a moment’s relief!…for about eight hours. It’s quite troublesome, for the subject is impossible to fit through puny human doorways, and yet I cannot forsake my ferocious plush minions, so I must remain for the duration.”_

“Eight hours. Right. Well, thanks. I guess,” he said, and hung up. He turned to Aru. “Looks like we just have to wait it out.”

“ **GREAT,”** she said, pressing her free hand to her forehead and rubbing her temple. **“THIS TOWN, I SWEAR. I’VE NEVER BEEN SO EMBARRASSED…”**

He walked towards her, automatically opening his palms as if he was trying to negotiate his way out of a firefight. _Calm_ , the gesture said. “I don’t see why.”

She looked at him; even with her eyes narrowed, they were still massive. He could pick out all the little swirls of colour in her irises, the tiny details he never got to see. **“JAUNE, I’M** _ **HUGE**_ **, AND I’M** _ **NAKED**_ **. WHAT’S** _ **NOT**_ **EMBARRASSING ABOUT THAT?”**

To him, it didn’t seem like a bad combination at all, but he tried to be at least a little bit more diplomatic. “Oh, I don’t know. Speaking, you know, as a _guy_ , I don’t think you’ve got anything to be embarrassed about.”

“ **VERY SMOOTH.”**

“Although,” he continued, leaning against her ankle, “I suppose you were right, in a sense. Your feet _are_ pretty big.”

She snorted, and the billow of warm air almost blew him over. **“HAR-HAR-HAR. VERY FUNNY.”** She was quiet for a moment, almost pensive, and then said, **“YOU DON’T HAVE TO STAY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO.”**

“Why?” he asked. “It isn’t like I’m going to find something more interesting than _this_ at home. Besides,” he continued, “I was thinking that your feet must ache from the run, and I _do_ owe you a massage or two.”

She leaned forward; there was the sound of a great mass shifting as she did, an almost palpable feeling of gravity as her body loomed. Her face took up his entire world; the scent of her, still pastoral under everything, dominated his mind. **“ARE YOU** _ **SERIOUS**_ **?”** she rumbled. **“BUT I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO BUY YOU A PHONE.”**

“Consider it a deposit,” he said. “Besides, it might be a good workout. Like wrestling, but without the body slams.”

For a long moment, she was silent. But then, at last, she began to laugh, deep belly chuckles that went through her whole body. The ground shook as her chuckles reverberated through the building; her breasts, huge and unrestrained, bounced so much that he caught glimpses of her great nipples peeking out from behind her arm.

“ **HAHAHA! FINE. I** _ **SUPPOSE**_ **I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE FOR A FEW HOURS, SO I MIGHT AS WELL GET A FOOT MASSAGE WHILE I’M A GIANT,”** she said, laughing between the words. **“THIS IS SO** _ **ABSURD**_ **. I CAN’T HELP BUT LAUGH.”**

“Welcome to my life,” he replied, grinning. “It’s a little like _Alice In Wonderland_ , huh?”

“ **HAH! YOU’RE RIGHT. THERE’S A GIANT GIRL STUCK IN A HOUSE, AND THERE’S DEFINITELY A WHITE RABBIT.”**

“There you go then,” he said. “Now just relax and enjoy your massage. You’ll be back to normal again before you know it. Oh… But do you mind if I take my shirt off?”

To his great surprise, she turned her head away a little. Privately, he felt a little pity for her; it was hard to miss the blush when her cheeks were quite that big.

“ **I… DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S A GOOD IDEA.”**

“Why not? You’re not wearing yours.”

“ _ **I**_ **HAVE AN EXCUSE.”**

“So do I. It’s really warm in here. Not in a bad way – just like being in a bath, kind of.”

“ **SORRY…THAT’S PROBABLY MY BODY HEAT. I’M BIGGER THAN USUAL, SO I GUESS I’M HOTTER THAN USUAL AS WELL.”**

“You’re pretty hot normally, too,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows jokingly.

“ **OH, STOP IT WITH THAT KIND OF TALK,”** she said, almost breaking out into giggles again. **“ALTHOUGH IT’S NOT LIKE WE COULD DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. T...THAT KIND OF THING WORKS WHEN THE** _ **GUY**_ **IS HUGE AND NAKED. NOT SO MUCH WHEN IT’S THE GIRL.”**

“You’d be surprised at just how huge I can get.”

“ **PFFT. OH, I BET.”**

He smiled. She was beginning to relax, soothed by the nonsense chatter and the flirting that was only halfway towards being a joke. He did away with his shirt (and was granted a very quiet **‘nice abs’** for his trouble – and set to work on one of her huge feet. He couldn’t turn her back to normal. But he could keep try and keep her as calm and relaxed as he was able, and make sure she didn’t feel as though her giant body made her a freak. That was the most important thing. He kept his hands moving, pushing firmly because he knew he couldn’t hurt her even if he tried.

“ **AH. THAT’S A NICE SPOT. MAYBE TO THE LEFT A BIT?”** Aru rumbled. She had begun to lean back against the warehouse wall, although very carefully since she wasn’t sure how much weight it could take. Her long hair spread out in waves underneath her; the heat had begun to make it curl.

He, too, had worked up a sweat. He wasn’t in _amazing_ shape – not bodybuilder or weightlifter tier, for example – but his time in the forces had taught him to respect his body, and it showed. He could feel her looking at him – at his chest, his arms, his stomach. Given the current situation, he almost felt bashful; Aru could give him _a_ _lot_ of attention if she wanted to.

“I guess that’s the advantage of doing it at this size – I can really get to all the tricky spots like this,” he said conversationally. “I wish we had some oil or lotion, though. I could give you the full massage experience that way. Maybe a bucket of water would do?”

“ **NO WAY,”** she said, turning her head shyly again. **“IT SOUNDS DUMB, BUT… IT’D FEEL TOO MUCH AS THOUGH YOU WERE WASHING A CAR.”**

“Sounds fine to me. I’d love to get your motor purring.”

“ **OH,** _ **STOP**_ **,”** she said again, although she still wore quite literally the widest smile he’d ever seen on a woman. **“IF I DIDN’T KNOW BETTER, JAUNE, I’D SWEAR YOU WERE REALLY COMING ON TO ME.”**

He paused. He waited for long enough to allow Aru a slow, thoughtful blink. “And if I was? What would you do?”

The moment stretched out a long time. Long enough that he wondered if he should just go back to massaging her feet. He was about to, when Aru wiggled her toes, which was as firm a signal to halt as any he’d seen.

“ **YOU CAN STOP NOW,”** she said, thoughtfully. **“YOU’RE RIGHT. IT… REALLY WOULD BE BETTER IF WE HAD SOME LOTION.”**

He grinned wolfishly at her. “Oh?”

“ **YOU’RE A PERVERT,”** she said softly, but not unhappily. In fact, she was smiling. Even blushing. **“WITH A LITTLE BIT OF LOTION, I COULD GIVE YOU AN IRONIC PUNISHMENT.”**

His mind explicitly told him not to say anything, but his body didn’t quite pick up on the message. “Like what?”

She didn’t say anything, but the way that she gently pushed up her breasts with her arm and traced one finger delicately down the line of her cleavage left little room for interpretation. He gulped. A lot of blood that had been in his arm muscles very quickly began to redistribute to another area of increasing high priority, and it _wasn’t_ his brain.

“And I thought you were such an innocent bunny, too,” he teased.

“ **HOW DO I PUT IT…US INNOCENT BUNNIES HAVE A REPUTATION, YOU KNOW? FOR… UM. BREEDING. IT’S NOT… LIKE I HAVE NO INTEREST IN THAT KIND OF THING.”**

It was difficult for her to avoid meeting his gaze with such large eyes, but she made a good attempt. One finger idly traced circles on the floor, and left a ripple in the titles where it did.

“Well… It’s not like I have no interest in that kind of thing, either,” he said, quietly. “Especially with you.”

The happy little wriggle she did when she heard that might have been less noticeable if it hadn’t registered on the Richter scale.

“We can talk about it some other time, if you like. Maybe over coffee. You’ll have my number,” he said.

“… **IF WE DO, IT’S A DO-OVER. I’M NOT COUNTING THIS AS OUR FIRST DATE.”**

“Suit yourself,” he said. “As first dates go, I’ve had a lot worse. I’ve had excitement, thrills, seen things I didn’t think I’d ever get to see, and spent a lot of time with a beautiful woman who, at the time, was very big. I’m pretty happy right now.”

“ **OH, I CAN TELL.”**

Automatically, he covered his crotch with his hands. “Ah, sorry. Was it that obvious?”

“ **I WAS TALKING ABOUT YOUR TAIL.”**

True enough, it was wagging happily behind him, the traitorous bastard. He laughed it off, and took a great, luxurious stretch.

“To be honest, I’m pretty tired. It’s so warm in here. I could honestly just go for a nap. I don’t suppose you’ve got a camp bed or anything…?”

He looked around the warehouse, but mostly it was boxes, cages, pallets. Well, he’d slept better with worse. He could always break down a few of the boxes and sleep on the cardboard. It’d at least keep his back off the floor.

He turned around and was about to get started when he felt a great warmth circle itself around him. Gravity stopped having meaning. Aru had, with almost excruciating delicacy, picked him up with one hand, cupping the other under to support him. She brought him closer to her body; he saw her long, long legs stretching out in front of him.

“ **Here. Let me see if I can find a comfy spot for you,”** she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. **“...Thank you for staying with me, Jaune. It’s really sweet of you.”**

With infinite care and tenderness, she pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head. He felt his tail wagging again, but this time he didn’t bother to try and stop it. Sometimes, he just had to enjoy the moment.

“ **Sorry about this, but I need my hands,”** Aru said. She lifted him up a little higher, and the comforting hand underneath him disappeared. If she dropped him, it would have been a long fall. He was still thinking that when he realised that her cleavage was getting closer and closer. For a moment, he didn’t believe what was happening. But then he found himself being tucked gently into a warm, soft crevice. **“No wriggling.”**

To be honest, he had no real intention of moving; almost his entire body had gone rigid. Leaning back on her now-free hands, Aru began to move her legs until she was sitting, cross-legged, with her back against the wall. Her hand drew closer again, and she extracted him from her breasts, lowering him into the space her legs walled off before a very careful, but insistent finger pressed him backwards towards his final destination: the wall of fabric draped over her crotch.

“ **Don’t say anything,”** she whispered.

She pressed him into the fabric, one great fingertip on his chest. His senses very quickly filled up with things he’d never even imagined. The curtains were old, and soft; they’d been washed recently. But he could still smell the potent scent of arousal underneath.

“I… don’t know if this is a good idea,” he managed to say, while his brain quietly put the chairs on the tables and started to turn out the lights. “What if I toss and turn in the night?”

“ **Don’t,”** she replied simply. “ **Besides, it doesn’t matter whether** _ **you**_ **think it’s a good idea right now. After all… I’m just a** _ **teensy**_ **bit bigger than you.”**

“Just a teensy bit,” he breathed.

“ **Jaune?”**

“Yeah?”

“ **I’ll see you in the morning – and hopefully, we’ll both be the same size.”**

He nodded, and began to settle back against the fabric. There were places where – oh god. There were places where he could lean back and feel the fabric stretch taut over the opening underneath. One thing was for certain.

He didn’t think he was going to get much sleep.

* * *

“Hi, Jaune. Sorry I can’t stick around today. I’m helping Krila with her weight-loss program,” Aru said. The coffee shop burbled with low-level conversation.

“By chasing her around with a stick?” Jaune asked.

“I wish! But no, after what happened last time, I guess I _did_ learn the horror of having my body grow, so I felt pretty bad for her,” she said, and then her voice became very quiet: “Although, it was kind of fun, in the end.”

He rubbed his nose. There were a _lot_ of things about Aru’s ‘little growth spurt’, as she called it, that he’d had fun with. But perhaps one of the best things was waking up to find her wearing nothing but his shirt. It had been a bit too short to cover up the more, ahem, _delicate_ bits, but Aru didn’t seem to mind all that much beyond a bit of blushing and a small stammer. After all, she said, he’d gotten pretty well acquainted with her body the night before.

“You’re kinder than I would be. So, what did you need?” he asked.

“Oh, I just wanted to drop this off,” she said, and put down a gift bag on the table. Inside was a shiny smartphone, already taken out of the box, with the charger and cord wrapped up neatly beside it. “I hope you don’t mind, but after what happened last time, I thought it’d be better if I just picked you one out.”

“Fair,” he said. “I trust your judgement, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I tried it out a little bit yesterday, so I know it works. I put my number in, and QP’s as well, so you’ve got both of us on speed-dial,” she said, and smiled. “Well! Again, I’m super sorry about not staying, but duty calls.”

“Have fun. If she curses you again, give me a call.”

She glanced around, and then quickly leaned towards him, catching him by the shirt collar. Their lips brushed once, twice; the second time she lingered, as if considering whether to kiss deeper, before deciding it was too public a setting. Her cheeks were glowing as she withdrew. “Well. Um. I’ll see you later.”

She stood quickly and scurried from the shop. Quietly baffled, he waved at her as she left, and took another sip of fortifying coffee before getting to grips with his new toy. His old phone had been, well, old. Pre-touchscreen. It took him a moment to set up a new lock password and learn where all the menus were, but it was the kind of thing he could have fun doing. New tech was always fun to mess around with.

He was about to put the phone down when it buzzed with a new text message. Aru’s name flashed up in white letters on the preview screen.

“ _Hope you are enjoying your new phone! I’m busy this week, but next week I’ll grab you for one of those full-body massages you owe me. Bring some lotion this time! - Aru_

_p.s. check your pics”_

He smiled. Well, she _was_ a businesswoman, after all. He rooted through the menus until he found where the saved pictures were kept, and opened the gallery. He took another sip of coffee. His cheeks began to flush.

On the screen was a picture of Aru, taken from a high angle with his phone’s camera. She was smiling mischievously, and had pulled down the neck of her top with her free hand to show off one breast, complete with a soft, pink nipple.

He sighed happily, and wagged his tail. It seemed like there were a lot of things he was going to have to get used to about his new phone, and about his relationships.

But first, he wanted to figure out how to set a picture as a background.


	4. Dog Days

There was nothing, Jaune had been told, quite so magical as a frisbee. Certainly, it was magical how they all seemed to be magnetically attracted to the centre of his forehead, like a thousand flimsy UFOs converging for a doomed attack on a sentient planet. Only when _other_ people threw them, though. When _he_ threw them, they would fly three feet and then turn 90 degrees in mid-air to try and dig a hole to the earth’s core, returning to the molten hell from which they came.

He’d had similar problems in the military, actually, only that time it had been clay pigeons. Skeet shooting was popular in the old country, where it was available; not only could it be parleyed into national glory if a particularly promising sportsman was found, but it trained the troops in how to empty their guns wildly into the air at the sight of flying objects. A lot of places were too rural to have anti-aircraft munitions on hand, so a couple of good old boys with liquor and shotguns was as good as you could get.

Still, he thought idly as a piece of plastic whizzed over his left ear, there were worse ways to spend a late fall morning.

Despite the chill in the air, Aru was still dressed in a short sleeved shirt and a pair of faded jeans as she took another disc from the stack. She’d been flinging them – with suspiciously impeccable aim – at him for ten minutes now, apologising when she hit him and giving him a quick thumbs up when he managed to catch one, which was basically never. He was mostly too focused on dodging to catch, and most of them seemed to sail past his head so fast he was surprised they didn’t melt. Occasionally he would reach up to snatch one out of the air before it could hit him between the eyes, but it was few and far between.

Standing at a distance and observing them with a clipboard was QP. She seemed to have realised at some point that sports science was, indeed, science, and she was therefore a budding scientist. Therefore _therefore_ , she had the right – indeed, the _responsibility –_ to wear a lab coat in public whenever she wanted. Nobody seemed to have told her you could just _buy_ lab coats and wear them with no prior qualifications, which Jaune thought was a shame. She had a rather different allure when she was wearing one.

She had selected them as subjects in her current college study, ‘generously’ waiving the application process and showing up to personally haul them from their beds at ungodly hours of the morning. Her aim: to establish the difference in sporting capabilities between different types of kemonomimi, a task that apparently meant blowing twenty five dollars on frisbees for ammunition.

He didn’t mind it, honestly. He hadn’t gotten a chance to catch up with QP since she’d made him pudding at her house a while ago; their paths just hadn’t crossed over. He felt like… there had been a lot that hadn’t quite been said between them. It felt like a waste to leave things like that. He didn’t know what he wanted, or what she wanted. Or what Aru wanted, for that matter. But it seemed like this was an opportunity for him to find out.

It was also an opportunity to enjoy her cooking. She’d turned up armed with a picnic basket and promises of baked goods, which Aru, at the very least, seemed to think was a more then equitable trade for a morning’s work. If it was as good as the pudding she’d made for him last time, Jaune was inclined to agree. Time would tell.

“Hah… I didn’t realise I’d get this tired just from throwing frisbees. Jaune, you were ducking and diving all over the place… I don’t know how you do it,” Aru sighed, stretching out on the picnic blanket they’d prepared. “Maybe I’m getting out of shape… it’s that time of year, I guess. Haha.”

QP threw herself down on the blanket next to her, kicking her legs. “Aw. I think you’ve got a great shape, Aru! Sure, it’s soft and round and a little squishy, but that’s how bunnies _should_ be.”

He took a long moment to gaze at the sky. Lots of very interesting clouds. All sorts of very interesting formations. If he had to speak, he’d definitely talk about that, and not about which bits of Aru were the softest, roundest and squishiest, and how he might have acquired that knowledge first-hand.

Aru smiled. “So you think it’d be weird if I got buff?”

“No. Then you’d be going against the trend, so it’d be a charm point,” QP explained loftily.

That was the thing about QP, he was discovering. You couldn’t win against her. She wanted to maintain that, since you were her friend, you were an awesome person who deserved her support, and she would go to great lengths to justify it to you. Aru tried to help you grow through careful applications of stick and carrot, but QP made you grow by giving you a blueprint of the awesome person she thought you already were and making you live up to it.

“What do you think, Jaune?” Aru asked. The look on her face was a little mischievous. “What’s your favourite body type?”

“Warm,” he said wryly, cracking open the picnic basket. _You’ll have to try a little harder than that._ “The body type isn’t that important, anyway. It’s the person that matters.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm,” QP echoed.

He had the creeping feeling that he was being ganged up on. It wasn’t particularly new. The Waruda were all female, and he was the newbie on top of that, so he’d come in for some interesting comments while he was finding his feet.

“I think,” QP said slowly, “the most important thing is how somebody smells. That’s what I look for.”

“That’s just like you, QP. It’s a very… pomeranian way of thinking,” Aru giggled.

“I’m totally right, though! Jaune, back me up. You can tell what kind of person somebody is just by smelling them, right? Like, if you’ll like them or not? Come on! Canine solidarity!”

He rubbed his chin. “I wouldn’t go that far, but… there are definitely scents that are more appealing than others. And sometimes you find one that really clicks with you.”

Scent had been one of the major catalysts for him getting close to QP the last time they’d met. She’d been in heat then, so just being around her was a headrush. He’d gone out by himself and done a little research on heat in kemonomimi by himself later, and it was apparently latent until a similar type was nearby. Or, in other words, she’d only started to experience it because he’d come into town.

Since then, her scent had changed. It had become sweeter, more comfortable. Top notes of caramel, blended with the other scents that clung to her in day to day life – fabric softener, pencil shavings from her reports. The healthy scent of an active young woman, in the prime of her life.

It was a smell you could fall in love with, if you weren’t careful. Aru had a beautiful soul and many charms, but when it came to aroma, QP was in a class of her own.

“Oh, so that’s how it is for you two, huh… Oh. QP, you didn’t pack any drinks for us?” Aru asked.

“I didn’t think we’d need any.” The dog bit her lip. “It’s kinda cold out today, right?”

“For you, maybe.” Aru wrinkled her nose with amusement. “I think out of all of us, you’re the only one who minds the cold.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault. When you look at a normal pomeranian, they’re like, maybe 60% fluffy coat. So _of course_ if you take away all the poof, a pomeranian would get cold, right? That’s how it is for me.” She sniffed quietly. “I’m more of a summer person, anyway.”

Summer was the beach and swimsuits. Summer was tan skin and volleyball shorts, toned legs and heaving chests. A summer QP was a QP Jaune could get behind, and even though he had missed the window to see her, he tucked the image away in his imagination for further perusal.

“Well, I don’t know about you two, but _I_ definitely need a drink. You guys stay here, and I’ll go grab something from the coffee shop.” If you looked deeply into Aru’s eyes, you would see salted caramel macchiatos and pumpkin spice lattes spinning in the abyss. “Do you want anything?”

When they shook their heads, she stood up and went on her way. Left alone, QP and Jaune looked at each other, and silently vied for the position of who would be last to speak.

“So,” QP said, after her natural aversion to not making noise got the better of her.

“So.” He sat up, and flicked his ears towards her. Attentive, but relaxed. That was the impression he wanted to give.

“I was surprised to find out you knew Aru,” she carried on, although he got the feeling she had revised her topic at the last second.

“Mm. She threw coffee all over me this one time, and since then she’s been making me feel right at home.” The clouds continued to be very interesting. “It’s been helpful. Things are still very different to my home country, but… I feel like I’m settling in.”

“She’s great at that kind of thing… Honestly, I’m kind’ve relieved that you two get along.”

“Why?”

“Aru’s a good judge of character. More than good, she’s crazy awesome. The _best_. If she thinks you’re a good person, you’re a good person,” she said. “I mean, _I_ thought you were a good person deep down anyway, but if she thinks so, then it’s definitely true.”

“Well…” He rubbed the back of his head. It felt like a compliment, but he didn’t really know how to react to it. “I try my best.”

There was another long moment. He could almost feel the pressure of the silence building up, like gas in a bottle of champagne. He didn’t mind long periods of quiet, but he felt like QP did. Just as he was about to make some meaningless small talk to try and make her comfortable, she sat up.

“So… so… aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! I suck at stuff like this!” she burst out, and snapped her gaze to him. The dam had broken. “I tried to call you like four times last week, and you never picked up or called me back! What’s with that, huh? Why’d you even give me your number if you’re not gonna pick up? It’s so frustrating!”

“You’ve been calling me?” he asked. His hand went to the phone in his pocket. No missed calls, no messages. “What was it about?”

“...I was wondering if, um. You. And me. We could go somewhere. Together. On a date!” she said hotly, her cheeks flushing. “Quit looking at me like that! I don’t… usually _do_ dating. I don’t know how you arrange it and everything.”

He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “So, when calling me didn’t work, you decided to grab me out of my bed with a study as an excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse! This is genuine science! But… that might have been a part of it. A bit.” She chewed her lip, her ears drooping. Then, almost immediately, they perked up. “Hey.”

“Hm?”

“What happened,” she said, pointing at his hand, “to that super ancient phone you had last time?”

“Oh. I shot it. Accidentally,” he shrugged. “I always heard those phones could shrug off bullets, but I guess it depends what ammo you’re using.”

“So, you have a new phone?” she asked patiently. “With a new number?”

“I guess so. A lot was going on at the time, so I didn’t really listen to a lot of the details when they sold it to me – oh.”

He was struck by the sudden realisation that he was an idiot.

“That would be why I wasn’t getting your calls.”

He had not, before this moment, considered the possibility that QP was capable of glaring, or the further possibility that said glare would make him feel like a fruit shrivelling on the vine.

When he had recovered, and was sure she wasn’t going to make any sudden lunges for his throat, he scratched his head in what he hoped was a charmingly nonchalant manner. “I, uh… Well. I should give you my new number then. And if you still want that date, I’d be delighted. I’d love to get to know you a bit better.”

She made a valorous attempt to look as though she was mad. But the suddenly wagging tail gave the game away, and they both knew it.

“J-just so you know! You shouldn’t get your hopes up for me to put out on the first date. I know we skipped straight to that the first time, but I want to do the… you know. All the kissy stuff, as well,” she said. Her voice was grumpy, but she had the expression of a dog who was inordinately pleased with herself – the natural state of being for QP. “The first time was _special_.”

“Yes,” he replied quietly. “It really was.”

A delicate pause, but not an unpleasant one. The entire world seemed to shift into the background. It would have been a beautiful moment, if he left it. But unfortunately, there were still things that needed to be talked about.

“I should probably say. Me and Aru are a bit… closer, than you might have realised. We’re not dating, and we haven’t really done much of anything, but there’s been… developments.” This was, he thought, probably the most tactful way he could say that he’d been between her legs – but only in a geographic sense.

“Oh, I figured that out. Sometimes, when I visit her, she still has your scent on her. You can’t fool a pomeranian’s nose!” She paused, and carefully arranged the words in her head. “But Aru’s amazing. She’s one of my favourite people, so I can understand why. It’d be weird if you _didn’t_ like her, honestly. So it’s fine. Besides, that’s what dating is about, right? Seeing how it fits and… figuring out what you wanna do in the future. So don’t worry about it.”

She seemed confident, although Jaune didn’t know how confident she’d necessarily be if she looked through his phone and found the little folder of scandalous selfies that Aru was quietly building there. But it was fine. One way or another, they’d figure it out between them.

“But anyway. When you look at this data, you really kinda suck at frisbee, huh?” QP said conversationally, having apparently plumbed her emotional depths for the day. “In similar studies, kemonomimi almost always have a small advantage over baseline humans, but you’re way below the average.”

“I was in the military,” he frowned. “When we see objects flying at us, we don’t catch them. We duck.”

“Huh. Is that so? I guess that’s why you’re kinda muscular. How’s your cardio?”

“Not… as good as it used to be. I don’t do a lot of running nowadays.”

“That’s what I thought. You don’t have a good diet either, do you? Aru said something like that, but now that I’m looking, I can totally tell. Your tail fur’s not glossy at all.” She looked him up and down, as if to confirm her suspicions. “If you just do push-ups and stuff without thinking about your diet or other exercise, you’ll do more harm than good, you know?”

“I know, I know. Mostly I just do it out of habit… Why are you so concerned about what _my_ exercise routines are like, anyway?”

She put a thumb on her chin as she thought about how to word her answer. Tact was not something she excelled at. “We-elll… it’s a little bit to do with my course, I guess? But also! You’re pretty good looking now, but you’ve got potential to be _super_ hot with the right diet and routine. Besides, your lift strength seems good, but wouldn’t you like to be more flexible and have more stamina?”

“And what,” he asked wryly, “might I use those for?”

“All _sorts_ of things,” she replied, not looking at his face. “Anyway, here! Look at my tail fur. _This_ is the level of tail fur glossiness you should be aspiring to!”

The morning wore on. When Aru returned, she was moderately caffeinated, having taken the chance to sit down, relax, and calculate how many frisbees she’d have to throw to work off the calories from a pumpkin spiced latte. (The answer, depressingly, was more than the number of frisbees that she _had_ thrown, possibly in her entire life up to this point). She had a cup of hot chocolate in one hand for QP, and an iced tea in the other for Jaune.

She came back to find QP with her lab coat hiked up, and Jaune pensively examining her ass as her tail wagged in front of his face. The bunny sighed, and smiled to herself in a wistful kind of way.

She turned around quietly, and started to walk back to the coffee shop. If she was going to keep up with those two, she’d need to start drinking something a lot stronger.

* * *

Four hours later, in a remote and secluded location protected by layer upon layer of nerds, QP and Aru’s war council convened for the first, and hopefully final, time.

In actuality they were in the basement of the local tabletop gaming shop, where Syura had managed to land a part time job. She had initially been hired as a calculated move based on the fact that she was female, but this had quickly faded to irrelevance due to the fact that Syura could play every game there with all the skill and prowess of true geek royalty. Anybody who got distracted by her feminine wiles would quickly find that she was very much aware of what a trap card was, and employed them liberally in her nefarious plans for total nerd domination.

In time, people whispered, she was sure to inherit the shop, and it would become one of the eight gyms that tabletop gamers would have to compete at before they could be crowned a true dungeon master. As a result of her exalted status, she’d been given the key to the basement, which looked like, but was legally distinct from, an _actual_ dungeon.

As Syura’s room-mate, QP had declared that “what’s yours is mine and mine is yours, except for any pudding in the fridge which is mine exclusively unless you’ve been good,” and tucked the keys into her pocket. Allowing Syura access to a dungeon was dangerous; allowing her to live in a basement was also dangerous. If the two conditions could be combined, her power would be absolute, and absolute power corrupts every cutie.

“Okay, Aru. It’s time for girl talk. _Serious_ girl talk,” QP said grimly.

The rabbit felt her smile tighten. The last time they’d had ‘serious girl talk’, they’d ended up duelling with a pair of pugil sticks, which QP had suspiciously close to hand. There were, Aru had noted, some foam battleaxes resting against the wall; like Chekhov’s gun, she couldn’t help but think they were intended to be used.

“So. Uh. Jaune told me that you and him were um, close. Just… you know, out of interest, how close are we talking?”

Aru sighed. She’d been wondering when this question would pop up, and hadn’t exactly been looking forward to answering it. It was inevitable, though. She generally didn’t bother to keep secrets with QP; the dog had an innate affinity for rabbits, and it made her extremely perceptive when it came to Aru (and what passed for her love life). Likewise, she’d known that QP and Jaune were at least attracted to each other. It was hard to mistake the wagging tails, the alert ears, and the private smiles for anything else.

“Well… We had a date the other day, although it didn’t go quite as planned. We kissed, once or twice. A few times.” She paused, before swallowing her embarrassment and continuing. “And, uh, I might have sent him a few pictures where I’m… _less_ than a hundred percent clothed. Or, you know, fifty percent. Or… twenty percent. I kept my socks on, is what I’m saying.” She raised her head, having thoroughly appraised her own feet to keep from blushing too hard, and looked QP in the eye. “What about you?”

The dog looked away. “He… helped me out when I was in heat.”

Aru, who whose heritage included two species who bred all year round, did not look up, and thus did not see the point as it sailed cleanly between her ears and past her head. “Oh, he went out and bought you medicine? That was nice of him.”

“There, um, _isn’t_ medicine. He helped out the… old fashioned way. With me on top.”

Aru looked at her best friend in the entire world, and felt the cogs turn in her mind. When they’d spewed out the only applicable answer, she blushed. Then she got out her phone, scrolled hastily through her pictures until she found one with a good angle, looked at her friend, and blushed even harder.

“ _How?”_ she asked.

“Uh… well, we took our clothes off, and–”

“No, I mean, how did it _fit_?” Aru spluttered. “I’ve _seen_ what he’s packing, and just the, um, geometry of it doesn’t really make sense. _I’d_ have trouble taking that much, and I’m bigger than you. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t tried to do it properly with him yet! How could you have… I mean…” She held her hands out with an approximate measurement. It would definitely have been at the belly-button, as far as she could tell.

“You’re bigger, but I’m flexible and I have good muscle control,” QP said loftily. “And… I was in heat. I think that took care of most of it. It honestly didn’t even hurt – it felt like it was just the right size.” She sighed dreamily. “I was thinking, maybe that’s like a sign, you know? Like it was made just for me.”

Aru shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. It was sweet, in a way, but she was coming to terms with the idea that not only _could_ QP have sexual intercourse, but she’d already done it and she’d done it with a guy Aru was quite interested in herself. It was a lot to take in.

“But it was kind of a whirlwind thing, right? It felt totally natural at the time, but afterwards, I thought about it and I felt bad since we did it all out of order. You’re supposed to do dates and then kissing and _then_ sex, but we’ve done it all backwards. So I want to start again from dating.” She paused. Her tail swished uncertainly. “I was, um, wondering if you had any tips.”

Aru laughed breathlessly. “Um… haha. QP, you, uh… you know I might be interested in him myself, right?”

“I know. But I think that’s fine. Whoever gets him, at least one of us ends up happy, right? And they say not to let guys get in the way of friendships. So no matter what, we’re still friends, and we’re still a team. And teams share information so they can pound the opposition into the dirt! So let’s strategise!”

Aru had several things she could have said, none of which she did but all of which she considered. Firstly, there was the fact that QP was talking about pounding people into the dirt mere moments after they’d discussed sex, which was a mess of issues in its own right. Secondly, she wondered whether QP could _actually_ distinguish love from volleyball, or if she had conflated the two pleasurably within her own head.

But, mostly, she was touched by the heartwarming (if slightly incoherent) reasoning. It had that same guilelessness she sometimes saw on letters to Santa, and for which she had a definite weakness.

“Well… What kind of tips are you looking for?” she asked at last.

“Oh, you know. Stuff like… what do I wear, what’s a good thing to go and do, what kind of girls do you think he likes…”

“Big ones,” Aru said distantly.

QP narrowed her eyes. “The girls? Big, like, how? You mean, uh, chubby?”

Aru shook her head. “ _Big_.”

“Maybe… bust size?”

“I mean, yes, but no. General bigness.”

“So, tall?” QP’s ears seemed to droop at the thought; although her chest had grown by the time she hit college age, her height had not exploded the same way.

“Kind of.”

“How tall?”

“Maybe… twenty to thirty foot?”

QP nodded sagely. Then she blinked. Then she shook her head and made a noise like she’d been tricked. “What?”

“So, I don’t know if you read the paper the other day–”

“I didn’t.”

To be fair, actually reading the Ebimanyou Town Gazette was a grand undertaking by itself. The town was populated principally by weirdos and eccentrics, all of whom seemed to have a knack for creating or solving problems – usually the former more than the latter. There was no such thing as a slow news day.

Quickly, Aru gave a very brief and somewhat edited recap of her growth incident, which had indeed been featured in the paper – on page 17, as a matter of fact, underneath an advertisement for dish soap. Apparently ‘giant half-naked local business owner streaking through the streets’ only merited that much. It was that kind of town.

“But, long story short… He was into it. I think, _really_ into it. I ended up asking Krila how to do it afterwards, and… I’ve been messing around with it, a bit. It’s tougher to _stop_ growing than it is to start, and I can’t do it without ripping my clothes, but it’s definitely a thing you could try.”

Even as she said it, Aru was aware of the patent absurdity. When _normal_ girls gave each other dating tips, they taught each other how to accessorise. And here she was, telling her best friend that if she wanted to get her man, she needed to use sketchy magic to make herself ten foot tall.

What was even more worrying was that QP nodded.

“Actually, I think I can do something like that. It’s kinda related to my part time job, right?” QP said. ‘Part time job’ was their secret code for when they needed to talk about being either the unimpeachable judge of all children and deliverer of yuletime joy, or the cosmic deification of beating up people for abusing the power of sweets to cause conflict. “See, apparently there was once this thing called the Battenburg Behemoth, and just in case it ever comes back, Amami taught me–”

As she listened to QP’s explanation, Aru’s eyes widened. Then they closed. Then, like donuts, they became glazed.

QP was not talking about parlour tricks and adding a couple of inches to your height. She was talking about kaiju battles, how to get Godzilla in a half-nelson and laugh in the face of the square-cube law. She was talking about using a cosmic sledgehammer to crack entirely mundane walnuts.

She was not, particularly, a dog with any concept of ‘restraint’.

Aru shivered. She could see what was coming from a mile away.

And soon, so would everybody else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the setup for a QP giantess chapter, but in the end, I waited a long time before actually doing that chapter (due to burnout and other concerns), so they turned out very different stylistically. Oh well.


	5. The World's Biggest Woof

Aru greets him with a low whistle as he comes in. There is a light dusting of snow on his shoulders, and he stamps his boots on the welcoming mat. He moves stiffly; his sheets are thin, and he’s getting older. The cold has crept into his bones.

“You clean up pretty nicely, Jaune,” she tells him, looking him up and down. Her tone is wry, almost rueful, but her eyes are sprightly. She’s having fun. “Ready for your hot date?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He scratches the back of his head. He feels self-conscious in this outfit. They’re the best clothes he has (his wardrobe is full of clothes with bullet-holes in them), but only because he wears them so infrequently. A dress shirt with little pewter cufflinks he got as a birthday present, a yellow tie with a discrete silver clip, and a heavy green jacket that he thought was a lot warmer than it actually is. The pants and boots are a sore spot; they have no holes or singe marks, but they’re definitely sliding him a lot more towards the ‘casual’ bit of smart-casual.

“Bet you’d feel a lot better with a hot drink, though. Tea or hot chocolate?”

She doesn’t offer him coffee; she’s infamously awful at making it. When the tea comes, it’s honestly pretty awful too. The base elements are there – water, sugar, caffeine – but it doesn’t really taste of anything. He wonders if hot drinks are just a concept that is beyond her, and if so, how far that extends – can she make soup? Stew? Can she cook at all? If he asked, he’d probably get a nervous giggle and a non-answer, so he doesn’t bother. Instead, he just warms his hands on the side of the mug.

“So, what brings you to the shop today? Just figured you’d wait for QP in the warm rather than the cold?” she asks.

“Kind of,” he says, and slips a little brown envelope out of his jacket pocket. In it are his wages, or most of them. “I wanted to ask you to deliver this, if you have time.”

“Oh, right! I did say I could take things to your family, didn’t I?” She looks to the side and chews her lip, which he’s started to recognise is a sign she’s… not _lying_ , necessarily, but very carefully considering the phrasing of what she says next. “I should be able to get it to them soon. This is the time of year I, um, do most of my travelling.” Her expression clears again. “But why are you worrying about it right now?”

“I didn’t want to get carried away today and spend more than I should.” He tales a sip of the tea. Still flavourless. “This way, I know it’s taken care of.”

“Do you see yourself getting carried away, then?” she asks.

“It’s QP, so…”

“Fair point.” Her nose wrinkles as she laughs. “Do you need any pointers?”

“About dating? I just thought I’d do what comes naturally and try to enjoy myself.”

“I meant sewing. When it comes to QP… well, it’s not a good idea to come wearing clothes you’re attached to. You might have to patch a few holes before the end of the day.” He laughs again, more lightly. “How’s your stop, drop and roll? You may want to brush up before you go.”

“She can’t be that bad,” he says, although it sounds less confident out loud than it did in his head.

“I’m just kidding. It’s probably smart to expect some adventure, though.” She takes a sip from her own mug, winces, and sets it down on the counter. “I’m a little jealous, to be honest.”

He lets that float in the air for a while. Her tone says she doesn’t want to be asked questions, because she might find herself answering them; for his part, he’s smart enough not to fill his head with thoughts of of Aru before he goes on a date with another woman. Whatever is going on, it can keep for a few hours.

About twenty minutes before the start of the date is due, the bell above the door of the R-Bit Room (a real bell that looks like it belongs in the hand of the town crier) tinkles, and QP steps into the shop as if she owns it. Perhaps, in a sense, she does; according to Aru, she’s the sole regular customer for the R-Bit Room’s admittedly niche services. She’s wearing a velvet winter dress the colour of evergreen trees that contrasts nicely with the vivid auburn of her hair, and ends at the knee. He can see the tip of her tail poking out from under the hem, wagging happily now that she’s out of the cold; below that, she’s wearing a set of thick pantyhose and a pair of brown leather boots that reach up to the middle of her calves, with shiny silver buckles. He can smell just a hint of foundation on her skin. When she sees him, she stops. Takes a breath. Starts walking again.

“Hey! Looks like you had the same idea I did,” she says, sliding onto a stool next to him. She doesn’t ask Aru for a hot drink. She knows better than that. “You look good in, uh, real people clothes.”

“As opposed to the fake people clothes I was wearing before?” he asks, arching an eyebrow.

“As opposed to, like, army clothes.”

He doesn’t tell her that the dress shirt, the pants and the boots are all leftovers from his military days, but accepts the compliment. There are ways to interpret it charitably, he decides. _You look good as a civilian._ That’ll do.

“You look great as well. Not that you don’t usually,” he adds swiftly, “but I’ve only ever seen you in a hoodie or your gym clothes. You’ve got a more feminine look today, and… well, I like it.”

She leans forward quickly, palms on the countertop, ears on full alert. Her eyes are narrow, suddenly intense. “It _is_ feminine, isn’t it? Like, super feminine? You wouldn’t mistake me for a guy, even at a distance, right?”

If he’s honest, he could probably tell she was a female from a mile away, provided he was downwind. She doesn’t have the heady, irresistible smell ‘heat’ smell she had when they first got to know each other, but there’s still something distinctive and alluring about her scent that the foundation does nothing to erase. “Of course not. I don’t know anybody who would.”

“ _I_ do,” she growls. “There’s some real weirdos in this town.”

Although he feels like there’s definitely a story behind that one, he lets it slide. No sense starting off a date by stressing her out. Before long, her expression bounces back into a familiar, faintly excitable smile.

“Since we’re both early, why don’t we get going? Aru probably doesn’t need us hanging around her shop flirting with each other,” he suggests.

“I wouldn’t normally mind, since it’s not like I expect to get any other customers… But I should probably sort out the decorations today.”

For a moment, the bunny looks sadly around the shop. There are still vinyl stickers of pumpkins in the windows, and little cut-out banners that look like a procession of witches on broomsticks hanging from the ceiling. Even the potted plants are housed in little plastic cauldrons. Although winter is undeniably closing in, it seems she isn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Halloween.

Apparently making up her mind, QP hops to her feet and smooths the wrinkles in her dress. He follows suit, thanking Aru for the tea and making his goodbyes. Without any hesitation, QP slides his hand into hers and squeezes, dragging him along out of the door.

A few minutes pass. Aru counts the time by the ticking of the clock, and when she’s quite sure they’re away on their adventures, she sighs.

“Haaaaaah… Dang it. They really _are_ cute together,” she murmurs. “Guess I’d better see if I can find the fairy lights.”

Turning, she starts to reluctantly attend to her work for the day, hoping that busy hands will ease a restless mind.

* * *

What amazes him is how natural it feels.

QP is equal parts confident and aimless. Within two minutes of leaving, she has happily admitted that she has basically no plan about what they should do for their date, save for wandering the streets in search of anything interesting. He is quietly amused at the turn of events; he appreciates the idea that a dog’s idea of a good first date is to take him for a walk.

As they stroll along, she talks – an animated stream of anecdotes and stories, one for every street corner. Here, she pulled a friend out of the path of an oncoming bus (shortly after she suplexed her into the path of the bus to begin with); in this alleyway, she fought a supervillain with an iron mask; there, she ate ramen with a friend after getting roped into doing the flying trapeze act at the circus.

Some stories she stretches longer than others. She has a lot to say about the haunted house incident and the phantom pudding thief, but often she will point to a spot and say, brusquely, “I fought Yuki there once” or “I beat up some weird guy on that corner”, before moving swiftly onwards to the next. To him, it seems there are a lot of spots like that – a lot of battles fought, and people beaten.

He wonders if any of her unlucky opponents have ever thought about taking revenge, a question that disappears as they travel onwards and the same names pop up, again and again. Of course they have. They just lost. Again and again and again, until they gave up. As far as he can tell, Yuki is the only member of the ‘rogue’s gallery’ outstanding. One day in the future, she’ll probably give up, too. But it’ll take a lot longer. Most people QP fights (from what he can tell) are actually, well, _sane_. Yuki is addicted. She’ll continue spinning the roulette wheel until it hits the result she wants, or she runs out of chips. Even he can tell that much.

Underneath everything, though, he is acutely aware of the feeling of her hand in his – and, more pressingly, how calm and comfortable he is with it. Of course, he isn’t a high schooler at their first prom – he doesn’t exactly expect to have damp palms and heart palpitations over a little hand-holding. But there should be _some_ nerves, somewhere. Even just his sense of self-preservation, ever craven yet reliable, screaming at him to get away from the extremely dangerous dog leading him to an unknown location to do who-knows-what.

But it isn’t. Somewhere in his brain, there is a dizzying sense of _rightness_. It’s less like he’s trying to navigate his way through a new and strange romantic experience, and more like he’s found something he’d always been missing but never realised. On some level, it terrifies him. Is QP’s scent or whatever really _this_ powerful, or is it just a perfect storm of personal and physical chemistry? He’s definitely been interested in women and gotten emotionally attached, but never quite this quickly, or quite this much.

But as his mind tries out explanations, the rest of him is luxuriating in the sensation. She’s taking charge, but he likes it that way. She sets the pace, but it’s the _right_ pace for him. When she giggles, he finds himself laughing without thinking about it, or smiling gently back when she looks over her shoulder at him. It’s not just easy, but effortless.

“Oh, dang!” All of a sudden she snaps the fingers of her free hand, and comes to a dead stop at the corner. A pair of city folk – he can tell by the way they walk, more purposeful and harried than small town people – brush by, making sounds of mild annoyance. “I just realised, I’ve been talking about myself the whole time!”

“That’s fine. You’re an interesting topic.”

He sees the tip of her tail wag at that, underneath the hem of her dress. He notices that she very pointedly doesn’t disagree with him.

“Besides,” he continues, a little cautiously “I thought you might talk about pudding the whole time.”

It’s a bit of an experiment. Pudding is something like a Pandora’s Box to QP; once the lid is opened, it can never be closed, and when pudding is mentioned, it becomes the only topic. That’s his theory, anyway. He watches as she bites her lip.

“I was trying not to,” she admits, almost sheepishly. “Pudding’s _great_. Pudding’s _the best_. But not everybody is as interested in it as I am, and… and I’m trying to accept that.”

“Hah. Thank you for your sacrifice,” he jokes dryly. She very pointedly doesn’t disagree with it being a sacrifice, either. “I like pudding – well, _your_ pudding, at least – but probably not enough to fight over it.”

“Hmm,” she murmurs, as though not sure if she can believe him. He doesn’t take it personally. Her world view seems to struggle with the idea of a person who _wouldn’t_ fight over pudding. “Oh! But speaking of fighting, you were in the military, right? What, uh, position did they have you in?”

He grins wryly at that. ‘Position’, as if it were a soccer game, or he were on a baseball team. Of course, when it comes to QP, there are a few positions he’d like to talk with her about eventually, although only in terms of bedtop sports.

“Well, by about about halfway through my first session of Basic, they already had me in the fetal position. Took a few weeks before I could get through morning training without throwing up.”

“Ah? I mean…” She blinks, and hits him playfully on the arm. “You know what I mean!”

“I wasn’t rank and file, if that’s what you’re wondering. They found out I could operate computers without filling them with bullets, so they shipped me off to the information division. Lot of comms work, staring at blue screens, and swearing that I’d track down the programmers and burn them alive.”

“Really? I kinda thought you’d be a sniper or something.”

“It was on the table for a bit. I had the raw ability, but being a sniper takes a lot of responsibility and discipline. Since you’re the guy with the vantage point and the high end scope, you’re responsible for relaying info to the ground team. On top of that, you usually have a spotter and a flanker with you… A lot of lives can get lost if you make a tiny mistake or reveal your position early. And it’s not like you can just fire at will – doesn’t matter how high-value a target is, if command hasn’t told you to fire, you don’t fire.” He shakes his head. “I’d prefer to be on the ground, close up. It’s scarier, but it’s a lot simpler, in my opinion.”

“Huh. I didn’t realise it was that complicated.” There is a blank, open innocence to her face; evidently, the military isn’t something she’s ever thought deeply about. Good, he thinks. “So, what do you do for fun?”

“Nowadays? Uh… Well, it’s not so much like I do stuff specifically to have fun. Fun finds me.” Fun usually found him desperately trying to run away, because generally Danger and Excitement got to him first. Ebimanyou Town was a hell of a place. “But back home, we did all sorts. About this time of year, we’d probably go down to the lake and try some ice skating.”

“Ah!” she barks, and then looks sheepishly around. He’s not sure why – a lot of her charm comes from being honest and excitable. “So, so, you can actually ice skate, then?”

“You won’t catch me doing a triple salchow, but I can stay upright and move around, yeah.”

“That’s amazing!” she says. Her bar for ‘amazing’ seems a lot lower than he thought it was. “We have an ice rink come to town at about this time of year, but every time, I just end up falling over. Nobody I know is really good at it, so I can’t even find anybody to teach me. You should totally give me lessons!”

It doesn’t sound like a bad plan. If nothing else, it would be an excuse to hold her by the waist while she’s learning to skate. There’s something very attractive in the prospect – and he can’t say no to her while she’s wagging her tail like this. “Sounds like a nice idea for date two.”

She seems pleased by this. By now, they’ve started walking again, and are heading, inexorably, towards the park. Occasionally, she will turn them randomly at a corner and explore a backstreet or an alley where a particularly interesting food shop lies, but they quickly return to circling the park like a pair of starving sharks inspecting a life raft.

“Hm… But you said ‘we’, right? Was it you and your friends?” she asks.

“Not so much. I was shy as a kid, so it was mostly me and my siblings.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath, and wonders if he said something wrong. Qp’s grip – comfortable and oddly familiar, up to now – suddenly tightens.

“You have _siblings?_ Multiple siblings?” she asks, in a breathless, awestruck tone. Her eyes are almost glittering with sheer excitement. “Ahhhhhhhhh! I was an only pup, so I always wondered what it’d be like to have brothers and sisters to play with!”

He smiles, but the smile quickly becomes a frown as he considers it a little more deeply. An only pup. Of course. The warning signs were all there. A desire to have other people acknowledge her and stroke her ego. An obsession with a food that totally eclipsed any feelings she had for other people. An eagerness to use violence to solve her problems. People like that had showed up in training, only instead of pudding, they loved alcohol. They never lasted long. The thing with picking fights was that, in the army, you didn’t pick fights with a person. You picked a fight with the squad. The squad invariably won, and then got away with it when the time for discipline rolled around.

He wonders where exactly in the picture QP’s parents are, but he doesn’t ask. Some bears don’t need to be poked.

“What’s wrong?” QP asks, peering quizzically at his frown. Quickly, he arranges his face back into a smile, but the damage is done.

“Nothing much. Just wondering how they’re doing. I left them back in the old country. Things there aren’t… uh, great. Politically speaking.” He chooses his words very carefully. “I send some money back to them from time to time. Aru delivers it for me. If I can, I’d like to get them to move over here. This town’s… unique, I think, but it’s more stable than where they are now.”

“Ah, yeah. Aru’s unbeatable when it comes to making deliveries,” QP says idly. He feels as though there’s something deeper behind the sentiment, but he can’t see what it would be. “I hope I can meet them one day.”

The conversation breaks off as they hit the park proper. Quite recently, they were throwing frisbees here; now the grass is a little damp with melted frost, the dirt still hard and compact with cold. The seasons seem to change so quickly here. At the top end of the park there’s a fountain, with benches to observe it (running water being the next best thing to watch after television), and it’s there that they stop.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. “Not too cold?”

“Nah.” She kicks her legs idly as she sits on the bench, and suddenly he can’t tear his eyes away from them. He wonders if she knows what she’s doing, or if it’s a happy accident. “I’m pretty fit, so the cold doesn’t bother me.”

“...I don’t follow.”

“Well!” she begins, eagerly accepting the chance to flex her biology grades, “even though body fat helps insulate you, your body uses your muscles to generate body heat. So if you’re toned like me, you don’t really need a lot of fat to keep you warm.”

“Huh. Good to know that my morning exercises are giving me _some_ benefit, I guess.” He sits down beside her, a little closer than he would with a regular girl. Without pausing, she slips her hand back into his. “How are you feeling so far? About the date, I mean.”

She thinks about this for a moment, which seems to stretch onwards and onwards into eternity. It probably isn’t a good thing that she’s deliberating so much over her answer, he thinks, but nothing has gone wrong so far.

“It’s… puah. It’s hard to explain, but I like it. It feels good, and kinda comfy, and I’m having fun even though we’re not really doing anything. It’s just… nice. To be around you.”

He gazes very deliberately at the fountain. There’s a patina of coins at the bottom, bronze and silver and even a little gold, almost a mosaic. Fascinating. He’s definitely not looking at the fountain because QP is blushing furiously and he’s trying to save her the embarrassment. And he’s _definitely_ not doing it because he might be blushing himself.

“I kinda suck at dates, though. I never went on that many, and even when I did, we just got attacked by robots and stuff so it was weird. I don’t know what _normal_ people do on dates,” she sighs.

He reaches over, and gently scratches the spot behind her ears, where he knows he’d enjoy being scratched himself. “Don’t worry about normal people. I’m not dating them. I’m dating _you_. Just do what comes naturally. If that’s just hanging around and enjoying each other’s company, that’s fine by me.”

To his surprise, she shakes her head to dislodge his hand, and hits him with a pout that is too adorable to take seriously. “You _say_ that, but I bet you’d be having a lot more fun if I were taller and had bigger…” She motions to her chest. “Right? That’s your _type_. Aru told me.”

 _Traitor,_ he thinks, although he’s sure Aru has her reasons. “Well… That _is_ my type, yeah. But I think that the right _type_ isn’t as important to me as the right _person_.”

Although he wasn’t thinking ahead when he said it, it feels good on his tongue. It feels true. If he were just conforming to type… well, it probably wouldn’t be QP sat on the bench next to him. It would be Aru. She was taller, more buxom, with long hair and legs you could dream about for weeks, if you were so inclined. Even in terms of personality, he loved the calming, nurturing aura she gave off, and the way she’d so easily extended a hand to help him when he first arrived in the city.

The only thing that Aru lacked – and lacked was an unfair word – was that she wasn’t QP. That’s it. That’s all he can think of. Whatever QP has – whether it’s pheromones, natural chemistry, or, and he hesitates to consider the notion, just love at first sight – it’s something he can’t put down to just physical appearance or surface level personality. Sure, the dog girl has her own charms, which, as his own personal experience tells him, are quite potent enough. But it’s that mysterious ‘something extra’ that puts her ahead.

“Well, at least you’re honest,” she sniffs, a little over-dramatically. It looks like she’s messing with him a little, and enjoying herself doing it. “But lucky for you, I can _get_ long legs and big boobs. Bigger and longer than _anybody’s_.”

His ears flatten, worried. “Are you talking about surgery? It might help the, uh, chest situation, but I don’t think they can extend your legs. Not that I’d advise it in the first place.”

“Not surgery. Watch.”

She hops lightly from the bench and saunters off the path and to the grass, her tail held high enough to lift the hem of her dress just a tiny bit. She has the look of a stage magician about to perform a particularly amazing trick; when she looks at him over her shoulder, it is an unspoken demand for his absolute attention. When she’s quite sure he’s watching – and he definitely is – she mutters a few words under her breath, far too quietly for him to grasp the form of them.

He wonders – and the idea fills him with a guilty thrill – if she, like Aru, has figured out how to tap into whatever mad voodoo Krila uses to make her stuffed toys into giants. But nothing happens, at least as far as he can see. It’s a little disappointing, and the look of quiet befuddlement on QP’s face says a lot more than words ever could.

Oddly, though, he can taste marzipan all of a sudden. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t eaten any today, since he skipped breakfast (and only a madman would eat marzipan for breakfast anyway), so he toys with the idea that perhaps he accidentally added cyanide to the breakfast he didn’t eat. Not that he’s ever tasted cyanide either, although that shouldn’t come as a shock.

QP looks back at him, now blushing and flustered. “W-wait. Just give me a minute, okay? I don’t think it worked. Maybe if I try it again–”

He smiles, and ambles over to her. “It’s fine, QP. Honestly. You’re perfect just the size you are,” he says, and scratches her ears again.

Then he thinks about it. His eyebrows furrow. Doesn’t… Doesn’t he normally have to reach _down_ a little bit to scratch her ears? He’s not a tall guy, but she’s on the short side – maybe a head shorter than him, or so he thought. But right now, she’s at eye level.

He glances down at her shoes again. Still the brown leather boots with the silver buckles. They didn’t have high heels two hours ago, and they still don’t have high heels now.

It occurs to him that he is now reaching _up_ to scratch QP’s ears.

“Oh, boy,” he murmurs, and takes a very smart two paces backwards to a safe distance.

His mind – so far lulled into a comfortable, lazy stupor – begins to race.

The problem, he thinks, is that the park has no cover. When Aru grew, there were alleyways to duck into, shadows to hide in, and eventually, sanctuary in the R-bit Room itself. Here, there’s nothing of the sort. Even the foliage is thin and sparse, the leaves shorn by the changing of the seasons.

Aru’s clothes, he very vividly remembers, did not survive her sudden growth spurt.

Apart from the impending problem of a giant, naked QP, he has the problem of a giant, naked _QP_. Aru is a local business owner; people nod their heads to her if they’re from the same block or so, but she’s hardly famous. QP seems to have had a fight on every street corner, an enemy in every gang. The amount of attention she’ll attract will be _massive_ , like many other things about her. He doesn’t have any idea how to solve that problem. Perhaps a solution would be easier to find if the blood weren’t flowing very much _away_ from his brain.

Meanwhile, every second that his brain falters, the problem is getting… well, bigger. The girl that used to be a head shorter than him is quickly approaching twice his height. To her credit, she doesn’t seem worried about it. Perhaps QP is just enjoying the new and strange sensation of being tall. She still counts as ‘tall’, rather than monstrous. Just about.

A passerby who was walking their dog in the wrong place and at the wrong time drops the lead in shock. The dog does not particularly mind, because it has met QP before and ascertained that she does not compete for trees to pee on regardless of her size, and therefore is not a territorial threat.

As QP very quickly advances towards the point where the human mind stops perceiving her as a living thing and starts categorising her as geography, a few things occur to him. The first is that her clothes seem to be growing with her, rather than bursting under the strain of containing so much QP all at once. In fact – as she begins to tower over the trees and grow level with some of the taller buildings – it’s quite an interesting spectacle. Both the fabric and the gaps between them have grown to match QP’s proportions; her pantyhose now look like very soft venetian blinds. Soon, they’ll be more like cables holding up a suspension bridge.

The second is that physics do not seem to be particularly bothered by her ambitions of being a mountain. The earth is not cracking under her weight, and unlike Aru, she’s not radiating waves of body heat that make the space around her into an open-air sauna.

Somebody on the street – the boundaries of the park now make little difference – holds up their phone to take a picture. In a town where being attacked by a giant tree is not especially out of the ordinary, QP has become a certified _event_.

He wonders, quite idly – his mind does often concoct things to occupy him at times like this – how many faux-cows would have to have died to make her boots, which, at this size, are very obviously not made of genuine leather. He wonders how many faux-cows you’d have to kill to make a house. The numbers can’t be all that dissimilar at this point.

The taste of marzipan washes once more through his mouth, and for just a second or two, all his teeth ache at once. Without really questioning it, he understands this to mean that she’s reached the apex of her growth.

There aren’t really words in his brain to describe how _massive_ QP has become. He wonders how she’s feeling about it all, but he can’t really see her face; if he cranes his neck, he can just about catch sight of her chin from this angle, although it’s mostly obscured by a bust that could crush an automobile. Her sports bra must be putting in a lot of work right now.

“Huh. That worked better than I thought it would!” she says.

Physics, again, seem to have given up on policing QP, because her voice is neither as loud as an erupting volcano or so deep it can’t be heard by human ears. In fact, it’s basically the same volume as he’s come to expect from her (as in, a little on the loud side), but it feels like it’s coming from somewhere just inside his left ear rather than out of her actual mouth.

“So, what do you think?” she asks. He can’t see her expression, but there’s more than enough smugness in her tone of voice to suggest her personal opinions on how impressive she is.

He gazes upwards, toward the heavens, and considers his words for a moment. Ponders them. Drinks in the situation for all that it’s worth. Ruminates on it.

“I think,” he says levelly, “I’m getting the best upskirt shot that mankind has ever known.”

It really is stunning. With her being so tall, and so huge, there’s nowhere else to look, just straight upwards at the heart of the beast. Every detail – every toned muscle of her thighs, every curve and undulation of her skin – is rendered in perfect clarity by the sheer size; it is easy, laughably and delightfully so, to pick up the raised contours of something lacy and translucent and _sinful_ underneath the pantyhose. Those are _not_ the kind of underwear you pick unless you expect them to be seen, although he really doubts she expected to give front row seats to so many people.

“W-wait! You’re looking _there_?”

“Not like I can really look anywhere else,” he replies, although to be fair, he’s not exactly making the attempt.

“Ahhhhhh! You weren’t supposed to see these yet!” she groans, and tries to flatten down her skirt with her hands. It doesn’t do much good, considering the angle.

He tries very hard to ignore the implications of the word ‘yet’, and what exactly it and the choice of underwear suggests about QP’s expectations of their date. QP already has the growth department pretty well handled – he doesn’t need his junk to get in on the action, at least until he knows how much of a problem this is all going to be.

He can tell by the shifting of her body that she’s looking around frantically, and probably taking stock of all the people who just got a sneak preview of her undercarriage. It’s probably too many for her personal tastes; crowds are starting to draw in, after all. He doubts she’d mind the attention if she was wearing pants, but that would have deprived him of a truly special memory, so he’s glad she decided to go with the feminine look today.

“Ahhh…. Jaune, there’s way too many people. Let’s get out of here,” she says.

She kneels down, laying a massive hand flat on the grass for him to climb onto. Her face looms into view; not only can he count her individual eyelashes, he could probably use them as fishing line. For a moment, he considers lingering; she doesn’t seem to have realised that by getting closer to eye level, she’s giving him a much more frontal view of her lingerie choices. But prudence wins out, and he scrambles across the grass, hauling himself up onto her fingers as if they were climbing walls in boot camp. When he’s made his way to the centre of her palm – surprisingly tricky, since the inside is concave like a half pipe – she cups her hand around him, bathing him in the shadow of her fingers.

“Hold on tight,” she mutters. “We’re taking off.”

His stomach sinks as gravity cheerfully waves her off and her massive frame soars into the air. He knew she could fly. He just didn’t think he’d be along for the ride. He closes his eyes, curls up into a ball, and tries to think about something that isn’t a thousand foot fall bereft of parachutes, or the steady onset of airsickness. Just a little something to distract himself.

In his mind, on the dark canvas of his eyelids, he traces a swooping floral pattern of translucent lace.

* * *

When the world stops moving again, the smell of Ebimanyou Town – a cocktail of mild pollution, baked goods, and pure old-fashioned chaos – has been replaced by the scent of evergreen trees and compacted dirt. The shadows of QP’s fingers recede; light streams against his closed eyelids. It takes him a moment longer to stretch out again and greet the waking world.

As QP lowers her palm closer to the ground, he scrambles out of her hand and takes to the earth with wobbly legs. Without pausing, he immediately starts to pace out a circle, tail swishing, trying to take in his surroundings.

It is, unsurprisingly, a forest, with all the usual forest-y bits. Twigs, dirt, some pine cones that he could probably start a campfire with if he needed to. Nothing remarkable, besides enough space for his ‘chauffeur’ to land in the first place. He tries not to think about how she’s bigger than even these towering trees, and how even a forest is not particularly sufficient to hide her.

Actually, he’s trying not to think about a lot of things right now. The first is how many people just saw QP flying across the sky like a luxury jumbo jet, and the second is how on earth he survived the flight just now. His giant friend seems to be able to suspend physics whenever she likes, but _he_ usually plays by normal people rules, which suggest he should have both frozen to death and starved of oxygen in his brief trip through the upper reaches of the atmosphere. He’s not complaining about his continued existence, but he’d rather not question it just in case the work decides to fix the oversight.

He’s brought back to himself when he hears QP sigh – one of those long, tired exhalations that come only after a massive mistake. When he turns around, she’s sitting with her legs stretched out, leaning carefully back against a brace of trees. They don’t struggle with her weight, but he’s just about ready to give up questioning it.

“Ahhh… This _sucks_! I blew the whole date…” she groans. Now that she’s lower to the ground, he can see her ears drooping. “It was all going well, too, but then I had to try and show off, and then the whole town saw my underwear…”

It’s rare to see somebody so big, and so powerful, sound so petulant. Still, he doesn’t find himself disliking it.

“Hey. Don’t worry too much about it,” he says, although any rational person would be worrying furiously. “It could have been worse.”

“How? How could it have been any worse?”

“Well,” he begins cautiously, and then stops. “Uh… Well. I don’t know if you know this, but something similar to this happened to Aru a little while ago, and–”

“I know,” QP cuts him off, miserably. “That’s where I got the idea, since she said you seemed way too into it.”

Although he’s not sure it’s wise to let that _particular_ comment slide, he ploughs on. “When it happened to her, there were a few differences. For one, when she grew… well, her clothes didn’t.”

He lets this sink in for a few seconds, and watches as the cogs turn behind QP’s eyes.

“That doesn’t very sound convenient,” she murmurs.

“That’s putting it lightly. We had to go back through town the next day looking for the shreds.” That in itself had been a lot of work, as he recalled. Aru was very strongly of the opinion that just because her underclothes had been reduced to confetti, that didn’t mean she should be letting people look at it or pick it up. “So, yeah. When you first started to grow, I thought you were going to end up huge _and_ naked, right in the middle of town. You got much bigger than I thought, but a lot less naked.”

“Why do you sound so disappointed by that?”

“Do I? I hadn’t noticed.”

She narrows her eyes at him. He can see every little whirl and pattern in her iris; he often hears people compare eyes to precious stones, but he never realised how closely the patterns can align.

“Still… I’m sorry. I ruined the whole date,” she says, capping it off with another rueful sigh.

“Sounds like a good excuse for another one later down the line. Besides, this is probably the most memorable date I’ve had. In all sorts of ways.”

It’s not much, but her ears spring back into something approaching their usual perkiness. Good. He doesn’t know her all that well yet, but he feels like she’s the kind of girl who shouldn’t be unhappy for more than a second or two at a time.

“What do we do now, though?” she asks. “Even if I shrank back down, it’s not like we could go back into town easily with all the fuss.”

“Well, we could experiment a bit with figuring out the rules of this growth thing you’ve got going on,” he says. “ _Or_ you could tell me a bit more about that underwear I wasn’t supposed to see until later.”

“You really are _way_ too into this,” she grumbles. “What kind of experiments were you thinking about?”

He grins. He thought she might be interested in some testing. After all, sports science has probably taught her some respect for the scientific method, and she’s probably curious about the potential of more discrete applications of… whatever the hell it is she did.

“Well, just to start, what about taking one of your boots off?” he asks. “I want to see if the clothes keep their size once they’re away from you.”

Her eyebrows lower. “Are you sure this isn’t just a sneaky way to get me undressed?”

“I wouldn’t call just straight-out asking you to do something ‘sneaky’.”

She mulls it over for a few seconds, but reaches for her boots. He stands back to watch. It’s fascinating to see her hands work work at this size, and the muscles in her calves tensing and un-tensing as she moves her legs. Besides, there is something deeply enjoyable to him about seeing her sliding the boots gently, _gracefully_ off. She’s definitely playing it up a little, he can tell.

“There,” she says, holding the boot up with her thumb and forefingers. “It’s off.”

She moves it carefully away from where he’s sitting, and loosens her grip. As soon as the boot leaves her fingers, it seems almost to disappear – but then he spots it tumbling through the air, just the same size as any other shoe. (He’s aware that all shoes are not the same size, but relative to the size of the boot she’s still wearing, they might as well be.) It hits the ground with a thump.

“So, they shrink again when you take them off. That’s interesting.”

“I… uh. I’m not gonna be able to put that on again, am I?”

She has a good point. He doesn’t think she could even pick it up at her size – just touch it gently with the tip of one finger. It doesn’t seem like just touching an object does anything, since the trees at her back haven’t set any world records for size in the last five minutes.

“I’ll carry it,” he says, and picks it up. It’s well-kept, he notices. Probably new. “I was surprised, though.”

“At what?”

“You, uh… take great care of your feet.”

Although it’s still covered by the sole of her pantyhose, at this size he can still tell she’s taken the time to have a pedicure – and not just a last minute one for the date. She is, after all, an athlete. Her feet wouldn’t be in good condition if she didn’t take the time to care for them regularly.

“Of course,” she retorts, and folds her arms. “A girl’s charm is in the details. Your feet, your hairstyle, how fluffy your tail fur is… it’s the subtle stuff that matters.”

Nothing at this size is subtle, he thinks, and even at her regular height, a lot of her charm comes from the drama. He’s not sure how she’d react to being told that, though.

“So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” he answers. “We could just sit around and talk until all the fuss quiets down, I guess. It’s a nice enough forest.” Her tail wags just a little. He decides to strike while the iron is hot, and make a joke to cheer her up. “Unless you have any other clothes you want to take off?”

She snorts. “Wow. I didn’t realise it at first, but Aru was right. You’re… kinda pervy.”

“Only when it comes to women infinitely bigger and more powerful than I am, apparently,” he shrugs.

“Hmph. It’s the first date, so I don’t wanna do that kind of thing unless you’ve really _earned_ it,” she sniffs. But there is a coy blush forming on her cheeks, and absolutely no way for her to hide it. “So if you want to see me without clothes on, you’re going to have to undress me yourself.”

He looks at her – at the vast expanse of pantyhose covering her feet and legs, the stiff velvet fields of her dress, the faux-leather monolith that is her remaining boot. It would probably take five men just take off one article of clothing. But he’s done dumber things with worse odds, so he makes a point of rolling up his sleeves to let her know he’s serious.

“If you want to take it back,” he says, putting a hand on her leg, “now’s the time to do it.” He feels her goose-pimples raise at his touch.

“Like I said. If you can manage it, at this size, you’ve earned it. The entry fee is ten cups of pudding, though,” she says. “Oh. And don’t tear anything. If you do, I’ll… I’ll stick you somewhere _weird_.”

“Looking forward to it.”

As he scrambles up onto her body, he doesn’t think he’s going to make much headway. But he’ll probably enjoy the attempt.

* * *

Space, QP used to believe, is a peaceful place. Nothing much happens there, when you think about it; mostly, it’s a lot of nothing, threaded together by stars and bits of rock.

But that means that, once you’ve seen it a few times, there’s nothing to really distract you if – for example – your boss calls you into upper earth orbit to chew you out.

“I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible, Sweet Guardian.”

QP looks at the blonde woman in front of her, and knows she is lying through her teeth. Of course she can believe it. The Sweet Gods are not, as a rule, the most responsible people. Some of them try, but generally they’re either too laid-back or just comically inept.

But it _sounds_ damning. If there is one thing that Sweet Breaker is actually good at, it’s sounding very unimpressed.

“Do you know how much damage you might have caused? How many memories I had to melt away to protect you?” the blonde asks ominously. “There were people _worshipping_ you. You had a _cult_.”

Again, to QP, this doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary. Gods and cults go together like peanut butter and jelly, or a cup of pudding and another, larger cup of pudding.

“I was just _practising_ ,” she whines. “I didn’t think I’d get _that_ big.”

“You were _showing off,”_ Sweet Breaker retorts, glowering back. “Abusing your power as a Sweet God just to flirt.”

This was, of course, true. But it was very unfairly phrased, QP thought. She didn’t know how she’d phrase it more gently, but there was definitely a better way of saying it.

But Sweet Breaker is, right now, dancing around a very large and obvious question: what, exactly, she intends to _do_ about it. It’s not like there’s a paycheck she can garnish, or that she can just magic away the power that pudding has bestowed upon QP. She also – and this is a point that both of them are very conscious of – doesn’t stand all that much chance against QP in a fight.

Finally, Sweet Breaker coughs.

“I’ll thank you to be more careful with your behaviour in future,” she says. “I’ll be observing you more closely from now on. You and that… guy.”

She’s not sure how she feels about having a celestial stalker, but it’s hardly the most bizarre thing that’s happened to her lately, so QP simply nods. “Did I really have a cult, though?”

“Yes. The Devotees of the Beast God, apparently. It was extremely difficult to wipe all their memories clean, but I dealt with them all,” Sweet Breaker sniffs. “...probably.”

With that, QP’s well-earned scolding concluded.

Twenty thousand miles below them, Syura drools as she sleeps slumped over at her computer desk, her browser open to a social networking site. Her post history – usually cluttered with game screenshots and pictures of noodles in imminent danger of being eaten – has spent the last twelve hours or so conspicuously clean.

But somewhere, hidden in a folder deep in the darkest depths of her computer, is a collection of blurry pictures archived from her smart phone. In two or three days, she will come across them once again – and be greeted by a tasteful album of her giant best best friend, with upskirts of her correspondingly giant ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a grind to make. Originally, the scope was supposed to be broader, but I ended up pretty exhausted and we already had a lot of material, so I'm prepared to call this particular segment done. The main drama hooks of the plot so far have been set up, so it's all good.


	6. Massage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story doesn't necessarily fit in the timeline. It's just a small bonus sex scene for a little extra Aru love.

“It’s funny,” she says wryly, “how all our ‘massages’ turn out like this.”

Candlelight and scented oil, doors closed and curtains drawn. Her shirt lying crumpled in the corner, a powder-blue bra folded neatly on top. The softness of her breasts against his palms.

“You’re always saying you have such stiff shoulders,” he says, kissing the nape of her neck from behind.

“My shoulders are on the other side.”

“Turn around, then.”

“No.”

He can feel her heartbeat in his hand. His fingers sink into her supple flesh. Gently, he teases her; rolling her nipple in his thumb, kneading her breasts and stretching them, as if he were milking her. She hisses quietly, rocking her hips backwards against his. She quickly zones on the firmness of his erection, and insinuates herself against it with slow, deliberate movements.

“Use a bit more of the oil,” she tells him, turning her head for a kiss. He captures her mouth with his, wets his hands with the scented oil and slides them across her skin. He rests his head on her shoulder, the better to see her skin glisten in the soft light. Her hands gently inch downwards until they find his fly. Her fingers are a little jerky, distracted, but she quickly has him out in the open, running her soft palms along the length of his shaft.

“You’re excited today,” he whispers.

“Look who’s talking. You’re always so… big. Mm… Help me out of these.”

He takes his hands from her chest and moves them to her belt, carefully tugging until it comes free. It’s such a flimsy little thing, the kind of belt he could easily snap if he was in a hurry. But he doesn’t want to hurt her. He never wants to hurt her. She wriggles out of her trousers, lifts them to one side with her foot. Her panties match the bra. Lace. He likes her taste.

“Ah,” she says as he hooks his thumbs under the waistband. “Not yet.”

Chastened, he goes back to her breasts. She reaches back for his cock again, gently positioning it so the head is poking at the thin fabric of her panties. He can feel how wet she is, her warmth; she grinds herself against him, rocking back and forth, only a translucent slip of lace from full penetration.

No condoms. Not with Aru. He’s a little too big for her to take comfortably, she says; if she’s going to take him, she wants the whole deal – creampie and all.

“I want to put it in.” His voice is throaty. Urgent.

“Not yet,” she says. Her face is flushed with excitement. “I have a little trick I want to show you.”

“You can show me whatever you like,” he growls.

She presses his hands against her chest and squeezes, adjusting herself until he’s cupping her breasts, with her nipples falling between his fingers. Then she breathes deeply, raises her arms above her head as if she were stretching, and waits.

For a moment, he wonders what she’s planning. And then he feels it – the growing weight, the flesh growing taut against his fingers, spilling over as her breasts expand beyond what his hands can contain. He hears her gasp sharply; her hips, still poised and waiting on the tip of his cock, tremble violently as she does. He adjusts himself so he can support the tips of her breasts again, and feels wetness at her nipples.

“Is that… milk?”

“Hah… haha. Hah… Sorry. That happens sometimes… when they expand like that,” she whispers, panting. “I’ve been trying to… practice, so… it doesn’t happen.”

“Don’t worry. It’s hot.  _ Really  _ hot,” he tells her. “Fuck. It’s been a while since I’ve been this hard.”

She slides her hand across her cock again, gives it a few quick strokes as if to check he’s telling the truth. Of course he is. That part of him never lies.

“Compared to this, my shoulders are nothing,” she says, with a dry little grin. His heart skips a beat; he loves it when she looks so confident. In control. “Maybe I can interest you in a… massage?”

“Consider me interested.”

She lifts his hands from her chest and takes a step away from him; for a moment he feels, acutely, the absence of her warmth. She turns to face him, her cheeks glowing, and gently presses a hand into the square of his chest, walking him backwards until the back of his knees hit the bed. “Be a good boy,” she whispers, “and sit.”

He sits, and she kneels, cupping her own breasts as she does. She seems almost bewildered with how big they are; he supposes they must take some getting used to. He could definitely bear getting used to them.

“Now, how did this go?” she asks coquettishly, tilting her head and winking at him. “Oh, I remember. First, we apply oil.”

She drizzles a little bit, not on her hands, but on her breasts – gently rubbing it between her newfound cleavage, coating the firm skin until it glistens. He knows what’s coming next, and closes his eyes.

He feels her envelop him – the soft weight of her chest resting on his lap, her tits pressing against the shaft of his dick. She squeezes him between them, the head of his dick only barely poking out of her cleavage, rolling him between the slick, succulent flesh. He groans gently, trying to keep his hips still so she can work him the way she wants him.

“Tell me when you’re going to cum,” she says.

“Not long now,” he replies, honestly. The grinding. The feeling of her breasts literally growing in the palm of his hand. The little theatrics she put on for him, and now this. It’s too much. It’s too much for any one man to experience. He doesn’t deserve it, and he thinks the great accountant in the sky has misplaced a few digits on his karmic checking account, but he’s sure as hell not complaining.

“Good boy,” she says, her breath hot against his cock. “Since you’ve humoured me, I’ll let you choose where to cum today. Do you want me to take it in my mouth, or…?”

He looks down at her, eyes-half lidded, watching her ears bob as she moves. “Your face. Please.”

“Fine. As a special treat,” she says. “You can cum whenever you like. Don’t hold back.”

Gradually, her motions speed up, and she begins to press tiny, gentle kisses onto the head of his dick. He groans, and she lifts her face up so he can get a clear shot.

It takes a few more seconds for him to cum, but when he does, he cums hard. Despite herself, she can’t help but flinch back, and instead of hitting her face his seed flies shoots upward before landing on her hair. He can see a drop that’s gotten caught on her ear, white on white.

“Well, that’ll teach me, I guess,” she says ruefully, wiping some of it away on her hand. “I’ll have to shower when we’re done.”

“Does that mean we’re not done?” he asks, perhaps a touch hopefully. Even if he just came, there’s plenty more he’d like to do. For one, he wants to see her chest jiggle as he pounds her. Right now, nothing would make him happier than that.

“You’re not going to stop before you’ve satisfied me, are you?” she asks, cocking an eyebrow. She already knows the answer to that one. “I’ve got a lot more things I’d like to do before the night’s over.”

“Oh? What like?”

“Whatever I want,” she smiles, blushing. She’s going a little further than she’s comfortable, but dirty talk was never something she excelled at. “After all, you can’t stop me. I’m bigger than you.”

He chuckles. “In the chest, maybe. But overall?” He looks down at his cock, already recovering nicely. “I think I might still be a little bigger.”

“Well, maybe I’m not bigger than you right  _ now _ ,” she says, and presses her hand against his chest again. He takes the hint, and lies back as she straddles him.

“But I  _ will _ be. Just wait and see.”


End file.
